The Flowers
by shawnkempredemption
Summary: At first Carmen didn't believe Peter Hale when he said that she had untapped potential. But that was four months ago. It was before she realized what she was truly capable of. After all, Isaac told her that the Alpha Pack was coming. And you either adapt or you die. (Sequel to "Carmen". Set in season 3. Isaac/OC. Y'all know the drill.)
1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE**

_"The flowers you gave me are rotting and still I refuse to throw them away. Some of the bulbs never opened quite fully but they might so I'm waiting and staying awake. Things I have loved I'm allowed to keep. I'll never know if I go to sleep."_

"Slap yourself in the face." Carmen grit her teeth, digging her nails into the flesh of her thigh. She was sitting in a chair with her back to Danielle, who was leaning up against a coffee table.

"How old are you? Seven?" She sneered, rolling her eyes. She retied her dark brown hair up from a ponytail and into a messy bun then clapped her hands together. "Come on. _Make me do it_, Carmen. Concentrate harder." The past four months had been exactly like this. Getting stronger. Opening doors. Unlocking places of her ability that she had no idea existed. It was repetitive but that was the only way for her to practice and it was the only way she'd be able to stand up on her own when the time came.

Carmen shut her eyes tightly and took in a deep breath, calming herself down before she spoke again. _"Slap yourself in the face." _

And Danielle did it.

One of the places of her ability that Carmen had learned to unlock was how to override people's willpower without even looking at them. She'd learned how to turn her ability on and off and now if put enough thought into it she didn't even need to look at people to control she turned around, Danielle was rubbing her cheek with a pout on her face. "You gonna try that on Isaac when you see him?" She smirked, making Carmen shake her head with a laugh. "I thought you guys were broken up."

"_Not _broken up. Going with the flow." She put the chair back in its place and crossed her arms over her chest. She was pretty confident in her answer. He was busy and she was busy. There was no other way for her to explain it.

"You haven't seen him in like three and a half months. It sounds like you're broken up." Ever since she had started living with Danielle she barely talked to anybody from Beacon Hills. She talked to Stiles over the phone every once in a while and she texted back and forth with Scott, but that was it. Her brother had been to see her a few times, but he was busy with work and she didn't want to give him an obligation.

"He's trying to find Erica and Boyd. You know, to make sure that they're not dead." Carmen rolled her eyes. Every single question she had been getting from her friends had to do with what was happening with Isaac and she never wanted to answer them. They just wouldn't believe her when she said she was going with the flow. She needed to concentrate on preparation and getting stronger and Isaac needed to concentrate on finding Erica and Boyd. Their paths didn't exactly intersect anywhere.

"You can't just go back home and pretend that nothing ever happened so you can go back to normal. You can't go in and expect that from everyone." Danielle knew a thing or two about people pretending. Her ability was telepathy, something that had put her through hell before she learned to control it. All she could hear was other people's voices in her head and she thought she was going absolutely crazy until she found out how to switch it on and off. It had grown into a valuable asset for her, especially when she was trying to discern people's intentions. That's why she didn't completely rebuff Peter when he asked her for a favor. "People don't work like that."

"Isaac works like that." She laughed quietly. If she knew one thing about him it was that he was obsessed with stability of any kind. He craved it. Once he had it he held on for dear life. "I miss him a lot." She admitted, just thinking about what it would be like to see him again after they had spent so much time away from each other.

"Do you think he's okay with all of this? With staying away for so long?"

"I really hope he is." Whatever unease she had been feeling was deposited into those words. It was sort of an unspoken fear for her. What if Isaac didn't want to be with her anymore? Or what if she didn't even want to be with him? She was different in a lot of ways, but she knew that he couldn't stay the same either. The kanima had just been a preview for what was coming...like it was practice. The real battle would be coming soon enough.

* * *

_The song for this was "The Flowers" by Regina Spektor which is worth a listen because it's the inspiration for the title hahaha._

**Alrighty guys so the sequel's here and things are definitely going to be pretty interesting. Thanks for all the support you gave to my last fic and I hope that you guys like this one just as much/more haha. I'd love to hear about any ideas that you have or something that you'd want to see developed so drop me a review and tell me about it! :) **


	2. Barely Legal

**Chapter 1**

_"Drive you to work; you'll be on time. These little problems, they're not yours and mine. Come on and listen to what I say, I've got some secrets that'll make you stay."_

"What do you mean, _you can't find Isaac?_" Carmen asked Peter, completely slack-jawed. He had just picked her up from Danielle's house in an attempt to find a little more time to bond on the way back to Beacon Hills. That had experienced a minor set-back when he told her that her boyfriend had gone missing. "He's a person, not a sock! How do you lose him!?" She ran her hand through her long hair, shaking her head.

"It's not that we lost him, we just can't find him." He shrugged passively, trying to give her the impression that it wasn't a very big deal. He started the car and began the drive back to Beacon Hills. "Besides, I thought you two had broken up."

If this was his attempt at trying to start another one of his awkward father-type conversations then it wasn't off to a great start. "Okay, everybody needs to stop saying that. It's not true." Somehow she seemed to be the only person who actually thought that. "Do you even remotely know where he is?" She changed the subject, staring out the window.

"It's not the first time something like this has happened. He'll turn up."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S NOT THE FIRST TIME!?" She screamed, making him jump. The valiant "search and rescue" mission that Peter, Derek, and Isaac had been on for the entire summer now seemed entirely convoluted and disorganized to her.

"Relax, alright? Derek would know if he was dead." He tried to calm her down, but there was no way that was happening. He regretted even mentioning it in the first place. Getting her to trust him more always seemed to go downhill whenever he tried to work towards it. Ever since he and Derek had grown apart he was starved for attention, and getting it from Carmen gave him a second chance. He valued her as an asset to the pack and he knew that she'd be important in the fight against the Alphas. He didn't want to screw things up. "You never told me how things with Danielle went. Was she beneficial?"

"Slap yourself in the face." Carmen mumbled, watching with delight in her eyes as he did it.

"Don't use people as your own personal monkeys. They won't enjoy it." He warned her, rubbing his cheek. No matter how mature he believed she was, she was still a teenager. And teenagers fell victim to vices. She had a lot of them, and her biggest one was Isaac. The second-biggest was being able to make people look like idiots. He didn't appreciate that. "But I'm glad that you at least learned how to do something."

She thought he knew a thing or two about using people as monkeys. After all, he manipulated people based off pure talent and nature. His disposition was to lie, and that's why she couldn't make herself trust him. She had her own reservations, most of them having to do with _why Scott and Derek killed him_. "She told me a lot about my parents."

"Really? Like what?" Finally she had started a conversation topic with him rather than being prompted to do so. He saw this as a positive sign.

"Like that Allison's aunt set them on fire and watched them die." The anger in her voice was clearly evident, and that scared him. Every time she had ever mentioned her parents, it was difficult. Almost as if the very thought of them caused her physical pain. Isaac had let him in on this piece of information one night when they were in the woods together. She was the only thing they really had in common so it seemed appropriate.

_"She um...she never talks about her parents. Whenever she thinks about the night they died she gets these really terrible episodes, like somebody's talking in her head or she's hallucinating or something. Sometimes she gets out of it for hours." Isaac shuffled his foot in the dirt awkwardly, drawing a circle with the toe of his shoe. "It's a little scary." That was an understatement. When they happened it terrified him. He couldn't have imagined how she felt about them._

_"It sounds like she has posttraumatic stress disorder." Peter nodded in acknowledgement, seeing a flood of panic before Isaac's crystal blue eyes. "She does?" Both of his eyebrows shot up. She had remarkable control for someone with a condition that severe. _

_"She used to have it really bad right after her parents died. She's supposed to be on meds for it right now, but she—"_

_"Refuses to take them." He mused, suddenly becoming immersed in deep thought. It was like she was outgrowing the sickness itself. _

The bluntness with which she mentioned them now was almost startling. It hadn't even phased her. "Do you think the Argents are coming back?" There was a tone of interest in her voice now, and Peter knew what would come from that kind of curiosity. He had fallen victim to it for his entire life.

"If they are, don't do anything stupid." He was too used to telling Derek those words. "They're an asset. Don't turn them against you or us. Kate was different from the rest of them. She was like Gerard. Chris and Allison aren't like that." But he knew how she felt. There was a time in his life when he would have wanted nothing more than to personally kill all of them, but he was smarter now. He knew the time was approaching when nobody could afford to put their own interests in front of the majority's needs.

But Allison _almost_ was like that. The night they battled the kanima, all she could remember was how Allison stared into Isaac's eyes when she ripped through his skin with her daggers. In that moment Carmen had been too concerned about helping him to even process anger. Though when she thought back on it, anger was the only emotion she was capable of having. It was like forgiveness was completely out of the question. "She almost killed Isaac."

"He would have healed."

"She _wanted_ to kill Isaac."

"Fair enough. But she didn't." That was the most important part. It didn't really give her much closure on the topic, but it got her to be quiet about it. "Once we locate him, I'm sure you'll be in a much better mood. Then you can solve whatever ridiculous relationship conflict you have so it will stop impacting your decisions and giving you bad judgement."

"It's not doing that." She grumbled to herself, crossing her arms over her chest. She just admitted that they had relationship conflict, and it was exactly what he wanted to hear.

"You literally made me slap myself in the face for even mentioning that fact that you and Isaac were no longer together, and you just got finished telling me that you essentially wanted to kill Allison. So yes, it's doing both of those things and it needs to stop. You don't need vengeance." Well not yet, at least.

"Vengeance is a good motivator." She smirked knowingly, looking over at him. He scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"Not for a teenage girl." She was a teenager, but she was definitely more clever than average. She experienced emotions on a completely different plane from mostly everybody her age and it gave her the advantage of staying level-headed in certain situations. It also made her more apt to convincing herself to do terrible things.

"I'm not a normal teenage girl." She corrected him. The words rolled off her tongue with ease, as she was clearly familiar with having to repeat this sentence to people.

He pulled up to a traffic light and tried to get some time to compartmentalize everything. She was different. Something about her just wasn't the same from four months ago. He thought it had to do with gaining more power, but if it was she would have never been able to shut up about it. Her character had shifted in a strange way and he had to correct it before it was too late. She'd end up devaluing herself. "You have school tomorrow. We can talk about that." He suggested, hoping that she'd throw him a bone.

"It's school." Now that was a normal teenager's response. The way her eyebrows moved could give him the hint that she was clearly disinterested in the topic. "I'm getting a ride with Stiles." It was a first-day tradition. She never rode to school without somebody who was close to her.

He quickly jumped at that. "Well that's good, right? You two are close friends." Now he was just making stupid statements. It occurred to him that they never really talked about her life other than her ability or Isaac. He made a mental note to work on that, but he'd probably forget about doing it anyways.

"Yeah, I guess." She'd talked to him on a weekly basis over the summer. She never really told him what she was up to, but he never really asked either. He was too busy mending Scott's broken heart, and it wasn't like she had minded. She had grown apart from everybody over the summer and for a good reason. "So why'd you volunteer to come get me anyways? My brother could have done it."

"Because I felt like we needed to talk." Peter wasn't particularly close with her brother, but they did know each other. Again, like with Isaac, Carmen was the only thing they had in common. Peter wasn't interested in Troy's ability because he found it mundane and boring. It was an ability that humans had an interest in, and he found most humans boring to begin with. He thought it was a crime that not even her parents had been intrigued by her gift. He'd just assumed that they didn't know what they had been given.

"About how you lost my boyfriend?" She wouldn't stop bringing it up. It was almost like she wanted to make Peter feel bad about it. She wanted him to give a human response. Even though there had been plenty of change in her the one thing that remained the same was that she still cared about Isaac. She still loved him. To her it seemed like he was the only sure thing in the world.

"He's a person, not a sock. We didn't lose him." He repeated her earlier wisecrack in a snarky tone. She rolled her eyes. The only reason she was clever enough to not fall for one of his tricks was because she had learned to think like him. That wasn't exactly something to be proud of. "And no, I just wanted to talk to see how you were doing."

"That's what my dad would try saying when he wanted to pry at my life." She mused, twirling her hair around her index finger. It was like she had grown out of her inner conflicts like a pair of shoes. Like she barely even found the time to care. Her bluntness was startling.

"I'm hardly your father, which is easy for both of us to agree on. I just want to make sure you're on the right path." His tone of voice seemed innocent enough, but she wasn't buying it. "We're all depending on you to have a clear head when the time comes. We can't afford for you to get into a temper tantrum."

"I'm not a child."

"That's arguable."

She opened her mouth to say something incredibly sarcastic but she bit her tongue. He was right. "Whatever." She mumbled, seeing the _Welcome to Beacon Hills_ sign pass her window as they drove by it. She smiled to herself and she could feel heat growing in the pit of her stomach. She'd missed it here. No matter how much she had discovered about herself when she was with Danielle, it wasn't home. Beacon Hills was the closest thing she'd had to a home since her parents died. She'd gotten attached to it.

"Your brother might be at the hospital. I didn't check with him before." Peter said casually, turning on the road by the high school. Both of her eyebrows shot up.

"So you're telling me that he's gonna come home from work tonight, see me sitting on the couch, and think I teleported to get here?"

"Well, the teleporting is a little far-fetched..."

"Peter, you're joking. Legally, this is called kidnapping." She scoffed, shaking her head. For some reason she was barely surprised that he hadn't notified her brother. It was just in his nature.

"I came back from the dead, so I don't think the legal system seems to impact me very much."

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Barely Legal" by the Strokes. _

**A couple of you guys wanted to see more of Carmen's relationship with Peter and I really am going to enjoy developing that over the course of the story. Also, I'm just looking forward to a lot of character changes as well because the third season of the show does delve into that a lot and I'm excited to try my hand at it. **

**Also, thank you so much to everybody who's followed/favorited/reviewed so far! Before I put this chapter up I had like 37 followers already and that's crazy! Thanks for all the support. :)**


	3. O' Sister

**Chapter 2**

_"My sister, there is a sadness on your face. You're like a motherless child who's longing for comfort. What's running through your veins that's causing you such pain?"_

"Dammit..." Carmen mumbled as she was burned by her curling iron yet again. It had been a long time since she'd bothered to do anything but braid or tie her hair up and she clearly wasn't as dexterous with the iron as she thought she was. She looked over at the clock and knew that it would only be a matter of time before Stiles got there and she hated being late for anything. She shut her iron off and poured out a container of black bobby pins onto her table, putting a few of them in her mouth as she braided her long hair and twirled it up into a bun. She tucked the pins in at the end and stood up in front of the full-body mirror on the back of her door. "You're going to be fine." She sighed to herself, smoothing out her navy blue skirt. "You're going to be fine."

She thought about what she'd say to Stiles when he got to her house but she decided not to dwell on it and not to make excuses. He deserved better than that, and now she could afford to have distractions. They'd understand once she got time to explain it. At least she hoped so. As she was picking up her backpack to head downstairs her phone started to buzz.

**Stiles - **Three minutes

**Carmen - **Don't text and drive.

As she was approaching the last stair on the staircase, she heard the characteristic honk of his beat-up Jeep. He hated that car. She loved it. "CARM!" Stiles squealed like a newborn piglet, bounding out of his car to envelop her in his arms when she came out of her front door. It was like they picked up right where they had left off. She could barely even breathe because he was squeezing her so hard, but she didn't care. She just wanted things to go back to the way they were before. "God, I missed you." He sighed, letting go of her.

"Missed you too, Stiles." She pinched his cheek lovingly. She was the closest thing that he had to a sister and over the summer he felt like he'd been experiencing something close to separation anxiety. "You let your hair grow out!" She ruffled the thick, dark brown hair at the top of his head with a grin. She had been pestering him to do it since they'd met.

"It's called being lazy." That was a lie. He thought Lydia would like it better.

"Updates on Lydia?" She asked when they got into the car. He shrugged and shook his head, clearly saying that there had been no new developments.

"Updates on Isaac?" He reciprocated the question, making her groan and throw her head back against the headrest. At least he didn't say anything about them being broken up. He knew better than that. "Still haven't talked to him, huh?" As far as he and Scott had been told, Isaac had just been out looking for Erica and Boyd.

"I haven't had time." Whenever they talked it was an abbreviated conversation. Nothing important ever really came up. She was starved for a halfway decent conversation with another human being. "How was your summer?" She asked him, obviously wanting to change the subject. She was worried about Isaac and that wouldn't go away.

"Not bad, not bad. Did a lot of lacrosse prep with Scott. He's still a little...y'know...after Allison. But he's fine." The last thing Stiles needed was two friends with impossibly broken hearts to fix. He was putting all of his chips in on Carmen and Isaac staying together, but he didn't think it was very likely. He didn't want to be the one to tell her that either. "So are you gonna tell me what you were doing in LA for the past four months or not?" He felt like she owed it to him.

"It's...a long story." He was tired of hearing that line from her. It seemed like that was all she ever said to him now. And she used to tell him everything. "But I will tell you. I promise." She smiled at him reassuringly. He wasn't satisfied with that reply. He wanted a real answer from her.

"It better be soon." He shook his head, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. He pulled into the high school parking lot and luckily found a space close to the front of the building. "Are you sure that you don't want to talk about it now? Because we're early and—"

"Stiles, I'll tell you. I promise. Just not now." She laughed to try and put him at ease but it was pointless. She wasn't the same and he could tell. A blind man could probably tell. He drew his lips into a thin line and nodded, getting out of the car. He'd get the answer out of her even if he had to sit on her to do it. "Look, we can hang out after school today and I'll tell you then."

He let it go for now. It was better than nothing.

They walked through the main doors together and bore witness to all the chaos that the first day of school offered. There were people striking up conversations with friends they probably told they would hang out with over the summer but never did. There were already people making out. And then there were girls already talking about all the new freshmen guys. Namely, Lydia and Allison.

The moment she saw Allison, Carmen felt her blood begin to simmer. She tightened her fists and Stiles put his arm around her shoulders, rocking her from side-to-side. "Reel it in, reel it in. Things are different now, you know that." That was what everybody kept trying to tell her, but she didn't see it like that at all. There was no way that they could begin to understand what she had gone through that night.

_"It's okay, it's okay..." His soft voice tried to soothe her, but she kept crying and she couldn't stop. She kept telling herself to calm down. That he was healing. That he was going to be fine. But it's difficult to tell that to yourself when one of the people you love most in the world is in your arms and you have their blood all over your skin. He was pale and sweaty, and his blood oozed all over her hands and stuck between her fingers. To see Isaac's beautiful blue eyes look so dazed and so weak could not have suffocated her more. Nobody knew how she felt. She'd never forgive Allison. _

The bell rang and she was so unused to the sound that she almost forgot where she was. "Come on, let's go." He nudged her along, walking her to English.

* * *

"Melissa, I'm about to go into 215. You did prelims right?" Troy asked tiredly, rubbing his eyes. He had been on-call for the past ten and a half hours. He needed to sleep. She opened her mouth hesitantly, but she didn't say anything. He looked up at her when he didn't get an immediate answer. The way she was looking at him made him uncomfortable. "Right?" He stopped flipping through various patient notes he had on his clipboard. He hadn't gotten the file yet for the person in 215.

"I did, I did...it's just that..." Being of a lesser position but of an older age, Melissa didn't know whether or not she should have treated Troy as her boss or as her son. After all, he was Carmen's older brother and she treated Carmen like another child. She just thought it was fitting. "It's Isaac." Her voice was hushed even though it didn't need to be.

"What do you mean, it's Isaac?" He raised one of his dark eyebrows at her, making her shake her head and lead him outside the door of Room 215. "Like Isaac son of Abraham? Isaac Newton?" He was dancing around the answer like a ballerina. He really didn't want to talk to his little sister's boyfriend right now. It was the last thing he needed. He only had 45 left until he could go back home.

"You know who I mean." Melissa grit her teeth at him. There were benefits to working in a hospital where there was somebody who knew about the supernatural and knew how to handle it, but she still saw him as a child compared to her. "And his wounds are healing too. You have to find some loophole for him." He sighed and shook his head.

"I'll see what I can do." He took in a deep breath as he twisted the doorknob to the room and opened the door, seeing Isaac's huge blue eyes stare at him as he walked in. "Hi, Isaac." That was how he had started every single conversation between them.

"Sup, Troy." It was the only greeting Isaac had ever been able to muster when talking to him. Some part of him was fiercely intimidated by Troy and the other part was just only mildly intimidated. He swallowed the lump that gathered in his throat as he wiped his sweaty palms on the white sheets of the hospital bed he was laying on. "Are you—"

"Operating on you?" Troy laughed and shook his head, pretending like he cared about what was on the patient chart. He knew Isaac could heal. Whatever had happened to him wasn't his chief concern. "No way, kiddo. I get off in less than an hour." The word _kiddo _had just become completely ingrained in his vocabulary since his parents died. It was like some sort of fatherly instinct had kicked in when he knew that he was going to have to take care of Carmen and he ended up taking up some of his dad's traits. It annoyed the living hell out of her but he loved it.

"Then why are you even in here?" He considered batting his eyelashes and saying something like _"It's not because you think I'm pretty, is it?" _but he decided against it. The circumstances weren't necessarily appropriate.

"Because I'm the on-call surgeon. I just have to look at your chart and make sure you don't have any infections or whatever." The loose terminology that Troy used suddenly made Isaac question whether or not he was an actual doctor. "You wanna tell me what happened?" He put the clipboard down and leaned forward, lifting up one of the bandages to see how his wounds were healing over.

"Long story."

Those two words had become his little sister's catchphrase as of late, and he knew that it meant _"I could tell you later, but I'm not going to." _He nodded and set the bandage back down. "She's worried about you." Isaac's face lit up at the very reference of Carmen. He looked like he had just been run over by a train yet he still found it in him to smile.

"Has she talked about me? Like at all?" His heart swelled just at the thought of her talking about him at all. He didn't know what it would be like to see her again. To hold her. To kiss her. To make up for all the time that they'd spent apart.

"Calm down. Since she got back from LA I've seen her for like 5 hours max." He put his hand on Isaac's shoulder and pushed him back down into the pillows. It was amazing how much energy a hormonal teenage boy could get if you mentioned a pretty girl. "I'll take the fall with the ER for you somehow being miraculously healed when you get into surgery, all right?" It wasn't much of a fall to begin with. The whole hospital treated Troy like he was Jesus.

"If you could actually get me out of here, that would be—"

"Impossible." Troy stared him down, making sure that he got the message. "I'm still a doctor, Isaac. Can't just let you walk right through the door. I'm not made of magic." He got up but Isaac grabbed onto his forearm and pierced through him with his blue eyes. "What is it now?"

"Please don't tell Carmen about this." He pleaded, making the young surgeon cock one of his eyebrows up in confusion. "Look, just don't do it. I don't want her to see me like this."

"But she's going to want to know. Isaac, she's freaked out about you. And frankly it's annoying me." He rolled his eyes. He had barely seen his sister for the past four months and the first and last thing that she always wanted to talk about was Isaac. He couldn't help it if he was a little jealous. They used to be so much closer and after they had come to Beacon Hills it had started to fall apart. He passed it off as her becoming more independent because she was growing up but it was a different kind of independence than wanting to drive places without telling him. It was her coming home with cuts and other people's blood on her face that scared him.

"Troy, I'm begging you. Don't tell her about this. She can't know." He didn't want her to see him this weak and incapacitated. She would have thought that he couldn't stand on his own two feet. He didn't want her to think that he needed her protection in any way, shape, or form. That was his job.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "O' Sister" by City and Colour. _

**The amount of support has been absolutely crazy you guys omg I can't thank you enough. I'd also like to take time to tell you that I know you're used to seeing me update like a hyperactive nutcase because that's what I did with the story before this, but I think I'm going to reel it in a little bit on this one. You'll still get quick updates, but not like 2-3 times a day like last time. I have like 600 pages worth of summer work that I have to get through for three classes and plus I don't want to run out of material to work with since this season is still airing. Hope you guys don't mind too much haha. :)**


	4. Ulysses

**Chapter 3**

_"So sinister, so sinister. Last night was so wild. What's-a matter there, feeling kinda anxious? That hot blood, grew cold."_

"What do you mean, your dog bit you?" Carmen raised one of her eyebrows at Lydia, who was trying her best to cross her ankles to hide the bandage wrapped around her heel.

"I mean, my dog bit me. There's not really another way you can interpret that." She rolled her eyes in response, continuing to take down notes. Miss Blake peered over at the section of the room they were in, but looked away when they went back to classwork.

"Wait, what if it's like the deer that crashed into your car that night?" Stiles asked, like there was a lightbulb that suddenly went off in his head. "Like maybe it's like when anima—"

"A deer crashed _into_ your car!?" The volume of Carmen's voice turned a few heads, and she started to cough to disguise it. "How is that even possible?"

"It was the night before you came back home. She was in the car with Allison and a deer just ran right into her car. Like full-on." The way he talked about it sounded like he was still a little creeped out by the entire incident. "Like I was saying, maybe it's like when animals get freaked out before an earthquake or a natural disaster or something?"

"Yeah, because Beacon Hills is about to have a tornado." Carmen rolled her eyes at him. This was definitely on the end of one of his more hard-to-believe theories.

"No, I don't mean specifically a tornado...I just mean something. Something bad." He mumbled, clearly hurt by the fact that both girls had shot his idea down so quickly.

"Stiles, it's only two things. I hardly think that—" Lydia's voice was cut off by a mass of black hitting the glass window two feet away from her. It slid down, leaving a messy smear of blood on the otherwise clean pane. "What the hell was that?" She hissed as Miss Blake neared the window to have a closer look at the blood.

"It looked like a crow." Carmen said, suddenly looking at Stiles who shrugged innocently and had the look of _"I told you so" _written all over his face. When she lifted her head to look back up, all she could see was a cloud of black coming straight in the direction of the school. It was a flock of crows, frantically flapping their wings like they couldn't fly fast enough. "Jesus Christ..."

Everybody in the room just stared at the flock of birds like they expected it to pass right through the school but instead they kept flying right towards the classroom. Then one hit the glass, putting a spiderweb crack in it.

And another one.

Then one more.

"GET DOWN!" Miss Blake screamed as the crows flooded the room in a sea of black, their talons and beaks hitting anything that they could. Stiles, Lydia, and Carmen scrambled down from their desks and huddled together as their faces and any other exposed skin was nicked by the birds flying at them and around the room.

Somebody was finally able to crawl towards the door and twist the handle, opening it to let the birds fly out of the classroom and into the hallway. Once the room cleared out, everybody slowly got to their feet to survey the damage that had been done. Hundreds of feathers and crow bodies littered the classroom, and every single person had some sort of cut that was leaking blood.

"What were you saying about how only two things happening means nothing?" Stiles raised an eyebrow at both of the girls, making them flick his head with their index fingers at the same time. "I'm just saying. Something's going on." He mumbled, rubbing his head to make the pain ebb away.

And Carmen knew exactly what he was talking about.

_"If the Alpha pack really is coming—"_

_"They actually are coming, it's a fact." Isaac corrected her. He wasn't even supposed to tell anybody about it, but he figured that she could keep a secret._

Everybody waited around while the sheriff's task force and the medical help got to them, clearly spooked by the entire incident. "Man, I gotta call Scott." Stiles shook his head, whipping out his phone. One's an incident, two's a coincidence, three's a pattern. There was definitely a pattern and something was coming.

"Stiles, can this wait? I'm a little—" Carmen could hear Scott's voice on the other end of the line. He sounded flustered.

"No, you're really gonna want to hear what's going on. Miss Blake's class—"

"Stiles, I really, really can't."

"Well I'm pretty sure that this qualifies for immediate discussion!" Whatever Scott was up to definitely wasn't what his mom had pulled him out of class for.

Scott groaned. "Fine. Then meet me at Derek's."

"Derek's? What the hell are you doing there?" Carmen's eyebrows shot up at the very mention of his name. It could have had something to do with Isaac. After all, he was a member of Derek's pack. But Peter said he'd tell her as soon as he found out about what was going on, and he hadn't talked to her yet.

"I'll explain later, just meet me there."

Stiles was about to hang up the phone when he remembered something. He slapped his forehead and sighed, shaking his head. "But I gave Carmen a ride today. I can't just—"

"Bring her too. She'll probably want to see this."

* * *

"Derek still lives here?" Carmen raised one of her eyebrows in disbelief as she got out of the Jeep and looked at the remains of the Hale House. It looked worse now more than ever. She wondered what it had looked like before the fire or what the people involved in it had been like before the fire. She probably would have seen Derek at least smile once or maybe Peter would be less sarcastic. Maybe she would have actually trusted both of them.

Stiles shook his head and helped her walk up the hill. "Nah. My dad says that the county took it over or something." They neared the front door and Carmen could feel her heartbeat start to accelerate. She just felt like something was about to happen. "But there's gotta be a reason we're here." He opened the door for her and both of them stepped inside, taking a full look around before their eyes came to rest on Derek, who was hunched over someone wrapped in blankets on a table.

"Isaac...?" Carmen's voice cracked and tears built up behind her eyes. The first thing she could see were his hands and she'd know them anywhere. She'd spent so many hours just absentmindedly tracing her fingers over his palms that she knew his hands almost as well as she knew her own. She took in a deep breath and slowly walked over to Derek, finally seeing Isaac's face in full view. He looked so peaceful, with his face in a completely neutral expression. There wasn't a single imperfection on his face that she could see. But then again, she'd never been able to pick one out anyways. "What happened?" She was still so shocked at seeing him that she couldn't even process any sort of emotion. Her eyes leaked tears that weren't from sadness or happiness...she was just crying because it was the only thing she could do at that moment.

"It's not that big of a deal." Derek mumbled, studying his beta's face intently. The last thing he needed was an angsty teenager on his hands. He didn't feel like he owed her any kind of explanation either. Isaac was his problem and his only.

Under normal circumstances, she would have just left him alone. But not now. She put her hand on his shoulder and grit her teeth. _"Tell me."_ It was definitely a more worthwhile way to use her ability than to make people slap themselves in the face.

"Alphas attacked him."

Her hand fell off his shoulder. She had just expected him to tell her that he had gone missing or that he had tripped and fallen into a ditch. Not an Alpha attack. Not by the pack he'd told her about. She walked around to the other side of the table and put her hand on his forehead, gently moving a few stray locks of his dark hair out of the way. "But he's gonna be okay, right?" Her voice was barely above a whisper, and his face softened when he could see how scared she was. Her fingers ran along his sharp cheekbones and his jawline but he didn't even move. He was out cold.

"Yeah, he's gonna be fine." And that was the first moment she had ever trusted him. She looked up and saw Scott walking towards them, giving him a nod of acknowledgment. She just didn't feel like talking right now. Her thumb moved over the bridge of Isaac's nose and his eyebrows, places where she had touched his face plenty of instances before. She had seen him sleeping at least a handful of times, but they most definitely hadn't been under these circumstances. The dark circles under his eyes that had started to fade before the summer started were coming back and some of the skin on his lips was peeling. The flesh on the outside was healed but she could tell better than anybody that he wasn't okay.

"So we gonna do this or what?" Scott flexed his arms nervously, rubbing his hand over his left bicep. Derek stood up and pulled out a chair for him to sit in. He got out a sparker and a blowtorch, making Stiles shrink back into the corner with widened eyes.

"Yeah I'm just gonna wait out—"

"Not so fast. I'm gonna need you to hold him down." He thought for a second before opening his mouth again. "And Carmen, I'm gonna need you to push him to maybe see if you can help Stiles out a little bit."

She nodded and waited to see if Isaac would have a response before she got up. Nothing. Derek sparked the blowtorch and she walked over to them, cracking her knuckles. She knelt down next to him and firmly held Scott's hand. "I can do a lot better than just pushing him." She smirked, waiting for the fire of the blowtorch to connect with her friend's arm.

Immediately Scott's eyes flooded with gold and he screamed in pain, squirming around like an earthworm. "Now would be a really great time to show us what you're talking about!" Derek yelled, holding onto Scott's arm as tightly as he could while he traced over the outline of the two bars on his skin that had healed over.

_"Stop screaming." _

He clamped his mouth shut but his body still squirmed around and his eyes were watering profusely. Stiles gaped at her in total shock and watched as Scott never once opened his mouth again. The intense physical pain was enough for him to pass out but it wasn't enough for him to start screaming again. "Okay, how the hell did you do that?" Derek had thought that she reached the limit of her abilities. He didn't care enough to read up on her kind when they first met and now he was regretting it a little bit.

"I had a lot of free time during the summer." She smiled, savoring the look of absolute shock on his face. She hadn't known him very long, but she knew him long enough to know that the expression he had on his face didn't appear very often. "Now wake up, you dweeb." She squeezed Scott's hand and his eyes shot open, making Stiles's jaw drop.

"It worked!" Scott was ecstatic as he poked his new tattoo with his finger, nearly jumping with excitement. He'd gone through hell and back to get it, but it was worth it. He'd finally have something to commemorate his accomplishments. Staying away from Allison for so long had been absolute torture for him, even though it had been mostly self-imposed. He needed to give her space after everything that had happened and he convinced himself that if he'd give her enough space then she'd end up coming back to him.

Since her services were no longer needed, Carmen walked back over to Isaac and resumed what she had been doing before. Just staring at him, caressing his face gently. She wished that she'd talked more with him over the summer. She wished that she'd forced herself to at least take a break from her training to maybe go back for a day or two and see him. It was obvious that she missed him a lot, but the magnitude of her feelings were severely underestimated. It was hard to believe that she had gone nearly four whole months without seeing him face-to-face or hearing the sound of his voice.

Their own personal vacations from each other had been mutual. _Maybe we did break up_, she thought. But she was still in love with him and she had faith in their relationship staying together. Hopefully he'd feel the same way because she couldn't bear to lose him, especially now. Not when the stakes were climbing as high as they'd ever been.

"So do _you_ know what she's been doing over the summer?" Stiles asked Derek. He just had to know. And he was getting impatient with the fact that she kept putting off when she was going to tell him.

"Well apparently something that turned Scott into her own personal robot for five minutes." Now he was suddenly intrigued by her in a way that he had never seen practical before. She'd be valuable when the time came. He just didn't know how.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Ulysses" by Franz Ferdinand._

**Alrighty, another chapter's on the books! Thanks a bunch for understanding about the slower updates haha. I'm just absolutely swamped in work right now but hopefully I'll push through it so I can get to writing this. :)**


	5. Flawless

**Chapter 4**

_"I fell in love today; there aren't any words you can say that could ever get my mind to change. She's enough for me, she's in love with me. You're a doll, you are flawless—but I just can't wait for love to destroy us, I just can't wait for love."_

"You were supposed to be home ten minutes ago." The sound of Isaac's voice made Carmen gasp in from shock as she entered her bedroom and saw him laying down on her mattress with his legs crossed and his elbows folded behind his head. "I was about to go out and start looking for you." He picked at his fingernails absentmindedly, making her cover her face and laugh out of embarrassment. He got up and walked over to her, waiting for her to take her hands off her face so that he could get a good look at her.

She hadn't changed much as all since they last saw each other. Maybe her face was a little thinner or maybe it was the look in her eyes...but she was still his. He put his hand on the side of her face and continued to study her features intently, trying to figure out what was different about her eyes. He had thought about them enough times and stared into them enough times to know that they weren't the same. It was like she knew something that she wished she could forget. Something that made her sad or upset or maybe just confused. "How long have you been here?" She looked up at him, noticing how the dark circles under his eyes were still there. It was like they were worse from when she saw him two days ago.

"Long enough." He said quietly, dropping his hand off her face so that he could hold her tightly in his arms. His palm cradled the back of her head and one of his lanky arms wrapped around her back as he pressed her face into his chest. "You have no idea how long I've waited to do this." He chuckled quietly, closing his eyes to bask in the moment. The summer had been difficult for the both of them but they both figured that if they could stay away from each other for that long without going crazy then something must have gone right.

"I thought that you were supposed to be at Derek's." Her voice was muffled because it was pressed up against the soft fabric of his dark blue t-shirt. His chest rumbled with laughter and she could hear him smack his lips together. He always did that when he felt guilty about something. "He doesn't know that you're here, does he?"

"So I snuck out." He rolled his eyes, finally letting go of her even though he didn't want to. "He won't mind. Besides, this place is a lot more comfortable." He shrugged, pacing around her room to re-familiarize himself with it. His fingertips danced along the wood finish of her dresser and he organized some of the stray bottles on her vanity table.

"But _I_ mind." She said earnestly, walking over to him and holding his hands. "He said that you aren't fully-healed yet and right now that should be your first priority." She wondered if he had gotten taller since the start of the summer, but maybe it was because he slouched a lot before and now he stood up straighter. Like he had new confidence.

"I wanted to see you." He murmured quietly, pressing his forehead up against hers. "Not my fault if I love you." He leaned in and kissed her softly, not being able to hold in a smile when their lips met. Physically, it was a feeling that he was used to. Mentally, he knew he'd never get over it. Feeling her hand on his face or her fingers running through his hair set an incredible heat across his skin that he couldn't get used to even if he wanted to try. Even the feeling of just loving somebody and having them love him was so new that he didn't want to forget how fresh it really felt.

"I love you too, you dweeb." She laughed, pulling away so that their lips were only centimeters apart but it was enough for him to see her smile. She pecked him on the lips one last time before pulling away entirely so she could go over to her backpack to get her homework out.

"What are you doing?" He asked, knitting his eyebrows together in confusion when he saw her take a couple books out and go to sit on her bed.

"My homework. From school. You know." She patted a spot on the bed next to her for him and he willingly jumped onto it, shaking the whole room. He laid down on his stomach and buried his face in the pillows. "You gotta go back sometime." She soothingly ran her hand up and down his back, making his lips curve into a smile.

"I will. Once we find Erica and Boyd." He stated simply. He was no closer to finding them now than he had been for the whole summer. It didn't matter to him if he hadn't known them before he turned...he knew them now. They were still part of his pack and they were the only family he'd really ever known. "Why are you even doing homework right now? It's Friday." He turned over onto his back and folded his hands over his stomach.

"I promised Scott and Stiles that I'd go to a party with them tomorrow. And it's impossible for me to get any work done on Sundays." She went back and forth between the pages of a textbook and her notebook, jotting down a few words every so often. "Plus I have to make sure that they don't get into any trouble."

"Oh, you mean roofied?" He asked with an eyebrow raised, leaning up so that he could see what she was writing down. He put his head over her shoulder and rested it there, pursing his lips as he watched her take notes. Her handwriting was rounded and graceful in the middle of the page but once she got closer to the bottom it became pointy and close together.

"Them getting roofied is something I'd rather not see happen." Dragging a drugged out Stiles and/or Scott into the Jeep wasn't her image of a fun night out with her friends. "I'm the designated driver if either of them decides to have a little too much fun. With alcohol." Something about Stiles's Jeep drew her in because she thought it had a lot of character, but no part of her wanted to drive it. Sometimes she didn't know how he got that thing running in the morning. "I promised them I'd go because Stiles needs to lose his virginity and Scott needs to get over Allison but he's too afraid to talk to people he doesn't know so he wants me to—"

"Push the girls he thinks are cute so he can impress them a lot easier." Isaac didn't know whether or not to laugh out loud or think Scott was a complete genius. "So you're basically going to be their wingwoman? Is that a thing that even exists?"

"I'm just doing it as a favor." She laughed, tracing her finger in circles around his kneecap. "I want them to have a good time. And I owe it to them after how much I totally ignored them during the summer."

"You totally ignored me during the summer..." He mumbled, still nestling his head closer to hers so that their faces were touching. She stopped writing.

"I didn't ignore you. Both of us were just busy." This was the relationship conflict that Peter was hoping would get solved when they talked in the car that day. "You know that. We talked about it." Her voice was gentle because she didn't want to lose her patience with him.

"I just felt like we should have talked more, that's all. I mean, you were in the city for four months...like I think you could have at least made a little more time." He wasn't in the mood for getting into an argument with her but he felt like that's where the conversation was headed.

She closed the textbook. "So are you saying that what I was doing in the city wasn't important, or...?" He took his head off her shoulder and turned to face her. She was definitely getting mad. He could see the frustration building in her eyes.

"No, I'm not. I'm just saying that maybe if we'd talked more then I would have actually felt like I was telling the truth when I told people that we didn't break up." He tightened his fists, trying to calm himself down. He hated getting mad at her more than anything in the world. He felt guilty about it, but he supposed that it stemmed from his father always blaming him for things that weren't his fault.

"Isaac, you know that we—"

"Hi, it's Carmen. I'm busy right now, but I'll call you back if you leave a message!" He recited her voicemail greeting word for word, getting more bitter as the sentence went on. "Were you so busy that you couldn't call me back to check in on how things were going?" He tried as best as he could to keep his tone even.

"Don't say that we didn't talk during the summer, because I know that we did." She didn't think she was going to end up finishing her homework any time soon. "Don't do this to me. You're the last person I need to do this." She had gotten shit from everybody about this. Scott, Stiles, and even her brother. She needed to feel like Isaac was on her side. That's what she depended on him for.

"Do what? Actually call you out for ignoring all of your friends?" Now probably wasn't the best time to be sarcastic, and he regretted it the moment it left his mouth. He could see her lips tighten up and her jaw start to clench as she ground her teeth together.

"I was doing stuff." She mumbled, feeling like he was attacking her. If she had known he was actually this upset then she would have asked about it sooner, but he always told her that it was okay. Always. "I went away for the summer because I needed to. I needed to learn more about my parents...about what I can do to make sure that I'm not a fucking useless idiot when the people I love are in danger. Because God forbid anybody gets hurt, you know I'll blame myself. So excuse me for not answering your goddamn phone messages." She said bitterly, her voice barely inaudible. He closed his mouth and bit down on his lip, trying to think of something to say. "You know I'm sorry. I didn't want it to happen like it did, but I can't do anything about it."

He reached over and let the tear that was falling from one of her eyes drop off onto his thumb. "It's okay." He sighed, accepting her apology because he didn't feel like arguing with her. He hoped that whatever needed to be resolved got resolved because of time and not because they yelled at each other. Playing it safe gave him security and security was the only thing in this world that he had ever longed for. Now that he had it he couldn't let anything take it away. "If you want me to go back to Derek's I can leave now."

She sucked in a deep breath and opened her textbook back up. "No, you can stay." He smiled and fell back onto the mattress with a laugh. She sat cross-legged and hunched her body over her work, promising herself that she would get it finished before the next morning. "I can't finish my work without background noise anyways."

She didn't have to look over at him to know that he was going through a million different ticks at once. Drumming his fingertips. Curling his toes. Shifting positions. Licking his lips. Clicking his teeth. "Hm?" He asked, looking up at her. Of course he hadn't been paying attention. She shook her head and he went back to fidgeting. He lifted his arms above his head and grabbed onto the headboard of the bed, making his shirt lift up to show his toned abdomen and how his pants were belted right under his waist to show his hip flexors dipping from his stomach to his groin. "How long until you're done with that?" He asked her, trying to see if she would look over at him.

"Probably not for another half an hour." She didn't peel her eyes away from the book. She didn't even want to know why he had asked in the first place. He groaned in annoyance and took his arms down from the headboard. "If you're bored you can go eat." She laughed, nudging his side with her knee.

"Nah. Counting carbs, you know. Watching my figure." He lifted his shirt up, basically forcing her to look at his abs whether she wanted to or not. She rolled her eyes and he shot her a charming grin, acting like he hadn't done anything wrong. "Carmen, you're seriously damaging my ego right now." He stuck his tongue out at her and crossed his arms over his wide chest.

"If you keep bothering me I'll damage more than just your ego."

He clamped his mouth shut. "Fair enough." He twiddled his thumbs and patiently watched her work, waiting for her to stop so that he could at least get a little bit of action. He had been seriously deprived. They had slept together maybe three or four times before she left for Los Angeles but to say he was getting a little hormonal because they were finally in the same room together and alone was an understatement. He didn't even realize that he was biting down on his lip until he felt the skin start to peel off. "Done yet?" He asked excitedly when he saw her put her pencil down.

"Nope." He knew that she loved to torture him. He thought it was cruel and completely unnecessary. He groaned and lifted one of the pillows up over his head so that he could smack himself in the face with it. "And I can literally smell the pheromones dripping off your body. It's distracting me." He thought he'd use that part of her ability to his advantage.

"Is it a good distraction?" He raised one of his eyebrows suggestively, pulling himself up then leaning backwards on his elbows. He nuzzled the back of her jaw with his nose and placed his lips on the smooth skin covering the pressure point right behind her ear. She was already starting to lose it. He was breaking her concentration but she couldn't help it.

_No matter how mature Peter believed she was, she was still a teenager. And teenagers fell victim to vices. She had a lot of them, and her biggest one was Isaac._

"Isaac, come on." She tried to shake him off but he refused to stop. His teeth grazed the back of her neck and she balled her fists, shutting her eyes tightly. "Don't..." He held her jaw in his hand and turned her face to match their lips together. His long legs sprawled out and knocked her books to the ground, grinning widely when he cleared the bed off. He eagerly climbed on top of her and balanced himself out with an arm on either side of her body.

"I think you're finished now." The low tone of his voice made her stomach tingle as the adrenaline started to pour through her body. He grabbed a fistful of her strawberry blonde hair in his strong hand and pulled on it hard enough to make a needy whine crawl out of her throat. He slid his other hand up her shirt, reaching under her bra to grope at her breasts. Her delicate fingers dug into the shirt on his back as she moaned out his name and curled her toes. "I'm a lot more entertaining than a stupid book." He growled, aggressively shoving his tongue up against hers.

"You know, I've read some really good books." She replied weakly, feeling his saliva-slicked lips suck on her neck. She gasped in and held him closer to her, feeling his teeth bite into her flesh. He laughed softly as he continued to leave hickeys on her ivory skin and he took his hand out from under her shirt to search around for her bedside table. He hit his hand against the wood finish while smacking his hand around to find the drawer but he didn't want to open his eyes. Finally his fingers wrapped around the handle and he yanked it open, dancing his hand around to find what he was looking for. A devilish smirk covered his face when he heard the satisfying sound of a plastic condom wrapper crinkle between his fingers.

Carmen decided that she'd have enough time to finish her homework the next morning.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Flawless" by The Neighbourhood._

**I kind of imagined Isaac going back to Derek's after this with Derek looking at him like "where the hell have you been?" and Isaac just says "nowhere!" and skips up to his room while "I Just Had Sex" by the Lonely Island plays in the background haha. **

**This was partially inspired by an interview Daniel Sharman did at Comic-Con when he said that Isaac "is an adolescent boy with hormones. He's pretty much into everybody. You know, any short skirt and he's there." **


	6. Buddy Holly

**Chapter 5**

_"What's with these homies dissin' my girl? Why do they gotta front? What did we ever do to these guys that made them so violent?"_

"Are you sure that you parked close enough?" Carmen asked Stiles uneasily as she looked over her shoulder to see the Jeep parked all the way at the street corner when she could tell by the loud music and flashing lights that the party was at least 100 feet away. And it was an incredibly long distance to drag two drugged out teenage boys. She hadn't even thought about them getting roofied until Isaac mentioned it the night before.

Stiles rolled his eyes and put his arm around her shoulders reassuringly. "Don't worry about it, Carm! Unless your heels are gonna be bothering you?" He batted his eyelashes as her, making her elbow his side. He recoiled in pain and took his arm away.

"Just remember what I said on the way here. _Cover your drinks._" She looked at him and Scott, making sure that they got the message loud and clear. "Because God help me, I will leave you here and let all these horny teenage girls desecrate your bodies."

"Is that what you let Isaac do—"

"STILES!" She slapped his shoulder violently, making Scott jump at how loud the sound was. "I'm only doing this for you guys, okay? So don't get on my nerves for one night!"

"I definitely didn't miss that..." He mumbled under his breath, rubbing his shoulder. He could already feel it starting to bruise. Nevertheless, he knew what he was asking for whenever he made wisecracks about things she did with Isaac. He had to get it out somehow, and he knew he definitely couldn't get it out around Isaac. Carmen would have slapped his shoulder until it got numb, but Isaac would rip his entire shoulder off without flinching.

"We appreciate it." Scott said for both him and his best friend, kissing Carmen on the cheek. He was visibly nervous about the party, partly because he just felt awkward going because he didn't know anybody there and partly because he wasn't eager to get over Allison. He knew that they still had a chance and he didn't want to let go of it. "How do you know this girl again, Stiles?"

"I used to go to nursery school with her. We've known each other since we were little kids." He shrugged, digging his hands into his pockets. Tonight was the night he was moving on from Lydia. She already seemed to be interested in a new guy anyway. "Scott, you know you don't have to worry about not knowing anybody here. You've got Carmen!" They both rolled their eyes at him.

"Like I said, only doing this for you guys as a favor." She sighed, toying with the gold arrow pendant necklace she was wearing.

"Look, tonight's the night I get over Lydia and you get over Allison." Stiles stopped Scott as they neared the party. "And if Isaac and Carm had broken up, then she'd be here to get over him too." She glared at him and he gulped. "We're here to have fun, alright man?"

"Alright." Scott took in a deep breath and rolled back his shoulders. They walked up to the door of a house that was blaring loud party music, and he held the door open for his friends before he walked in himself. As soon as he looked back up, a blonde girl in a tight party dress had her mouth on Stiles's and Carmen couldn't stop giggling. "What's her name again?" He asked her, assuming that this was the girl Stiles had known since he was a kid.

"Heather." She replied quietly, trying to hold herself together. When the girl pulled her mouth away from Stiles's, his two friends both gave him a thumbs up as he got dragged elsewhere. "Hope he doesn't get her pregnant." He was like her brother but in a lot of ways she took a sort of maternal responsibility for him. It was weird.

"Shall we?" Scott asked, giving her his arm so that she could loop hers through it. She laughed and nodded, walking with him out back to the pool area where there were groups and groups of people dancing and just having a good time. Maybe going to the party wasn't such a bad idea.

"So...see any girl you like?" She twirled around and tried her best to scope out any pretty faces for him. She'd probably end up being too picky. He looked around and shook his head, biting down on his lip. When the reality of what he was trying to do actually kicked in, he couldn't help but feel like it was the wrong thing for him to be doing. She could tell exactly what was on his mind. "Alright, let's get this over with." She sighed, leaning up against a table.

He knew for sure that she didn't want to talk about Allison. In fact, he'd be surprised if her eyes didn't start shooting fire when he started to talk about how much he missed her. "I know that after what happened to Isaac...you guys stopped being friends."

"That's an understatement." She laughed bitterly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"But she and her dad...they're different now. More than ever. I think if you gave her the chance to, she'd probably apologize." He almost slapped himself in the face for using the word probably. "I mean, like...she's sorry. Gerard just started to control her. It's not her fault. Her mom just died, Carmen. You have to cut her slack."

"She almost killed Isaac! How can everybody be so willing to cut her slack!?" Everybody said she was different. And they had overlooked what she did because she had an excuse.

"I'm not asking you to forget what happened. I'm just asking you to forgive her. Let her apologize." He pleaded. He didn't want one of his best friends to hate the girl he loved. It would make things damn near impossible to talk about and now more than ever he needed all the people around him to get along. They needed each other.

"Do you even know how I felt? I got home that night and I had Isaac's blood all over my clothes. I couldn't sleep for _days._" After Danielle taught her to control her emotions better, the nightmares went away. She started feeling calm again. And whenever she thought about the night her parents died she could recall every little detail without going into an episode or feeling like her brain was about to explode. It was all about control. She couldn't let everything go to waste now. "If she actually wants to apologize instead of staring at me like a deer in headlights every time she sees me, then maybe I'll think about forgiving her. Until then, you know she and I can't be friends again. It hurts too much."

"If I talk to her then maybe she can—"

"No, Scott." She stared him down. "If she's really sorry then she can say it by herself." That was the last she'd hear about him trying to patch things up between her and Allison. She knew that he meant well and that it he wasn't the only one who wanted things fixed, but he'd have to try a lot harder than making an attempt at coaxing Carmen into falling for a non-existent apology.

"Right." He nodded, drawing his lips into a thin line. "So um...you and Isaac? How's it going there?" He changed the subject to something he knew she'd much rather talk about.

"I think we got into an fight." She replied uneasily, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "I mean like...I could tell he was upset, and I apologized and he said it was okay, but..."

"You don't feel like it's okay." Scott blew hot air out of his mouth and scratched the back of his head. He definitely knew that feeling. "Was it about the summer?" He felt like he should have been more upset with her but he knew what she was going through. When he had first gotten the bite his life had changed and it was scary for him. Now she was finding out things about her life and her parents that were going to change her and he didn't blame her if her way of coping was just being alone. He knew that Stiles was hurt by it, but that was Stiles. He didn't have a mom or a sister and Carmen was as close as he got. He got separation anxiety.

"Yeah." She mumbled, pushing her hair out of her face. "I think he just wants to let things sort themselves out, but I feel guilty. If something's bothering him about us he never says anything about it." She just felt stupid for asking Scott for help. Nobody knew Isaac better than she did.

"He's doing it because he loves you." He shrugged. "Doesn't want to make you upset." He answered it like it was the easiest thing in the world. "I've done it with Allison loads of times." His voice got quieter towards the end as he realized the error of what he had just said. "...Loads of times." He mumbled, shaking his head. He sniffed his nose and blinked his eyes a couple times.

She reached over and squeezed his hand giving him a nod. "It's okay." She smiled sadly, hugging him tightly. "It's okay." Sometimes it seemed weird to her how Scott always knew what to say when she never expected him to. He was always the parent figure, mediating between her and Stiles whenever they got into little fights. Maybe she didn't need her brother to be everything to her anymore. She had people around her who could take the load off. Brother. Father. Best friend.

"I don't think I'm gonna end up talking to any girls tonight." He admitted guiltily, making an attempt at an apology. "Sorry we dragged you out here."

"Nah, I don't mind. You needed supervision anyways." It wasn't his fault that he couldn't get over Allison and she couldn't blame him for that. No matter how much she hated Allison, she cared about Scott just as much. And that was saying a lot. Allison made him happy and now he was hurting without her. She would be a terrible friend if that somehow made her happy.

Suddenly Scott's phone buzzed in his pocket and he took it out, staring hesitantly at the screen. One new text message. "It's Allison."

"Answer it." She nudged him, making his lips spread into a grin. He eagerly nodded and opened the message, knitting his eyebrows in confusion when he saw what it was. "What's up?"

"Nothing...um...she and Lydia want to talk to me. Like, now." The phone was shaking in his hand because he didn't know what he was supposed to say. "Should I tell them to come here?"

Carmen threw her hands up in surrender. "Control your own destiny, young apprentice. I can only tell you what to do." He nodded and typed a message back to Allison, telling her to meet him at the party. She wouldn't have expected anything different. "I'll watch Stiles for you while you go out and meet her." She definitely wasn't in the mood to play nice right now.

Scott nodded and walked back into the house so he could wait by the driveway for Allison and Lydia to get there.

Carmen decided to take the rare alone time and sit back to watch the party. It definitely couldn't compare to Lydia's birthday, but nobody could really compare a normal teenage party to getting your drink spiked with a plant that made you hallucinate and feel like you were getting set on fire. She rubbed her hand against the back of her neck and cringed when her fingers pressed against the hickey that Isaac had given to her the night before. She covered it with makeup so people wouldn't be able to tell unless they looked closely, but she could still feel it there.

_"Isaac, did you sharpen your teeth before you came here or something?" She called to him from the bathroom as she examined the trails of small bruises and bite marks all over her body. Some of them were yellow around the edges and others were purplish-blue. But they covered her skin. She sighed when she pulled his long-sleeved henley shirt over her head and walked back to her bed where he had one of his arms folded behind his head as he read a book that he had most likely pulled from the top of her nightstand. The smug look of satisfaction on his face couldn't be masked, and it wasn't like he would try to do it anyways. He didn't have that expression because he liked the book he was reading, that's for sure._

_"C'mmere." He mumbled, spreading his arm out so that she could get back into bed and cuddle with him. She smiled and pulled back her covers, snuggling up to his chest. "So what was the problem again?" He closed the book and put it down next to him. She reached her hand up and moved her fingers through his messy bed head of brown hair, turning his lips upward into a smile. He knew that Derek was probably going to murder him for spending the night at her house, but it was a risk he was willing to take. He felt so much better when he was with her that it probably could have helped him heal. _

_"I have hickeys. Lots of them." She pouted, wondering how she was supposed to go out in public. There were about three on the front of his throat and a couple on her collarbone. She didn't have any clothes that would cover them up so she'd have to resort to packing on as much makeup as possible. Plus she had checked and seen that there was a trail of matching bruises on both of her inner thighs, therefore preventing her from wearing shorts for the next couple of weeks unless she wanted to cover those up too. _

_"It's an instinct. I'm possessive." He didn't have a problem excusing it with being a werewolf. He let his fingers dance and glide over her skin with concentration on his face. He was very tactile, even as a little kid. His dad would yell at him all the time for touching everything in stores and leaving fingerprints on them. He just loved to touch things. To feel the texture beneath his fingers. He loved to feel the goosebumps raise on Carmen's skin whenever his fingers were light enough on her flesh. "Can't blame me for something I can't help." He shrugged, lifting her hand to his mouth so that he could kiss it. _

"Carm!" Stiles shook her shoulders, getting her to snap out of thoughts. "Carm, we've got a situation." He looked like he was about to have a panic attack.

"Did somebody drug you? I told you to cover your drink. I swear to—"

"No, it's not that." He promised her, shaking his head. "It's Heather. She's gone."

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Buddy Holly" by Weezer. _

**Ahhhh sorry this took so long! I've been busy with a lot of stuff lately like actually leaving my house for once haha. Also I started watching the show "Orange is the New Black" and I absolutely love it so far so I'd highly recommend it to anybody!**


	7. The Handshake

**Chapter 6**

_"You toss all the mornings lost to the clouds and you watch it go. Your fair-weather friends on a parachute binge get lost when the wind blows. The handshake's stuck on the tip of my tongue, it tastes like death but it looks like fun." _

"So could you tell me what we're doing again?" Carmen tied her hair up into a ponytail and looked over at Peter with skepticism in her eyes. He had brought her to Derek's loft for a partially undisclosed reason. He told her Derek needed help, which wasn't a _complete _lie.

"It's better if you just observe." He nodded, sliding open the metal door to the apartment. He walked down the stairs and over to Derek and Isaac while she just stood in the doorway, completely paralyzed.

"What's she doing here?" Derek asked, crossing his arms over his chest. Isaac looked increasingly more nervous as time went on, and he started to click his jaw just to occupy himself.

"I just brought her here to watch." Peter shrugged innocently, rolling his sleeves up. "Come on, come on. Don't be shy." He gestured for her to walk into the apartment and close the door behind her. She just kept staring at Isaac. She didn't know why she was there or what was going to happen. Truthfully, she was scared. She saw the way his jaw clenched and the way his hands wrapped around the table. His throat kept tightening. He was getting nervous.

"Peter, you shouldn't have brought her." Derek grit his teeth, slowly becoming aware of what was about to happen. "She can't watch this." He had morals. And he wouldn't let her become subject to this kind of emotional stress. It was almost barbaric.

"What's going on...?" Her breath got caught in her throat when she saw Peter's claws shoot out of his fingertips. The panic was rising in her blood and her palms were starting to sweat. The more she looked back and forth at the three men standing in the room the more she felt like something terrible was about to happen.

Derek walked over to her and wrapped his hand around her wrist to pull her towards a couch in the corner of the room. He had never touched her before. He motioned for her to sit on the couch while he sat on the coffee table in front of it, but she decided to put her purse down and sit next to him instead. "It's an ancient Alpha ritual." He explained to her, motioning at how Peter was staring at his own claws. "He said he'd do it on Isaac. To help him remember things."

Isaac slowly walked to sit in a chair that was placed in the middle of the room, and he slightly shuffled his feet, hoping that there would be some way he could back out of what was about to happen. He cleared his throat and sat down on the chair, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans. He was going to be fine. Derek wouldn't let anything happen to him that would purposely put him in danger. He hoped that was the case. "So how many times have you done this before?" He shifted his body uneasily when he felt Peter's claws along the back of his neck, tracing an outline of something. He licked the inside of his mouth and started to play with his hands again.

"I've got a lot of experience. It's crucial that you're calm." Peter looked over to Carmen and her eyes widened. "Carmen, come give us a hand."

"Peter, you can't—"

He raised his hand and cut Derek off. "She should learn the height of her abilities. Just a test, that's all."

"I don't push Isaac." Her lips drew into a thin line as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Not anymore. I promised him."

_"You know, I can make people slap themselves in the face now." She giggled, extremely happy to report to Isaac about what she'd learned while they were away from each other. "I can override people's willpower. It's crazy, right?" He nodded and kept his hand on her cheek, slowly tracing around certain features on her face. _

_"Am I gonna be slapping myself in the face any time soon?" He asked, with concentration riddled in his deep blue eyes. He never realized how relaxing pillow talk could actually be. Just them, together. Talking. Looking at each other. Sometimes he forgot what kind of danger was coming, and he was glad that he did. _

_"No, of course not." She laughed, more quietly this time. "No more pushing. Not for you. I promise." She looked up into his eyes. She loved his eyes. Big and blue...sort of like the ocean but at the same time maybe like the sky. And his eyelashes must have been longer than hers were, but she loved how plainly beautiful he looked. His skin was smooth and his features were all clearly defined, like he had been some sort of Greek statue that became human. The best part about him was that he had no idea of it. He had spent his entire life being kicked around by somebody who didn't realize what they had with them. "Really. No matter what. You know I mean it, Isaac." _

_"I know you do." His voice was soft and caring, like his touch on her skin. She loved him so much. She really did. And she refused to let her ability get the best of her when it came to him. She couldn't lose somebody who cared about her as much as he did. _

"Carmen, you've got to be kidding me! The entire point of your ability is to be able to stretch your parameters! Broaden your horizons!" Peter laughed incredulously. He was in complete disbelief that after all he had gone through to hunt down Danielle to train her that she was pulling this ridiculous bullshit on him. "You can't afford to pick and choose!" The world didn't let you pick favorites when you had a gift like hers. The world _punished _you for picking favorites.

"I can afford to for one person. And that's him. I'm not doing it." She couldn't believe he'd try to force her into doing something like that. She wasn't going to take part in a ritual that she knew absolutely nothing about. Derek was slightly impressed. He also couldn't help but be happy with the shocked look on Peter's face. Isaac's grip on the sides of the chair tightened and he braced himself for whatever was coming.

Peter calmed himself and flexed his fingers. "Fine then. Have it your way." He dug his claws into the back of Isaac's neck, making Carmen stop breathing. She couldn't swallow because her throat had just immediately gone dry. She was getting dizzy. Derek grabbed onto her shoulder and tried to lull her out of it, but the more in pain Isaac became the more catatonic she was rendered. He started kicking his legs around wildly and he gripped on Peter's arms to release him, but nothing was going to happen.

"He's going to be fine, just breathe." Derek didn't know how he was supposed to handle her. He didn't sign up for this. "Come on, breathe." It was like he was a new parent trying to stop his baby from throwing a fit in the middle of the supermarket.

She closed her eyes tightly and shook her head, refusing to listen to him. She was taking in air, but it was in such abbreviated breaths that he thought she was going to pass out. "Derek, tell him to stop, please. Tell him to stop. I can't, I can't...Derek, _please._" She begged, grabbing onto his arm. It had been completely unintentional. It didn't matter.

His heart rate slowed, his senses dulled, and he shot up to his feet.

"Peter, let go of—"

"I see them!" He yelled, his irises flashing blue as Isaac thrashed in his grip. He was in pain. So, so, so much pain. She couldn't do it. She promised him. It didn't matter what the situation was. She knew he hated it when she pushed him. No more. She swore on it. She swore to him. Never again.

"Peter, hurry the hell up! She's losing it!" Derek yelled, trying to hold Carmen up. She saw the blood dripping down the back of Isaac's neck and she started to hyperventilate even more. It was like somebody was stabbing right through her chest and her flesh was burning. She'd never seen him like that before. She didn't know how to react with anything besides pain.

Then suddenly Peter flew back, rubbing his hand. Isaac inhaled sharply, slowly moving his shaking hand to feel the skin healing where Peter's claws had driven into his neck. He didn't know what had just happened, but his memories had started to come back. He didn't like what he saw. "Did you see them?" He asked quietly, feeling the warmth of Carmen's hand on his own. "Erica and Boyd?"

"I saw them, but...numbers, shapes...things...it was all so blurry..." Even the man of cold steel looked terrified by what he had seen inside of Isaac's mind. No wonder they made him forget. "And I saw him..."

"Deucalion." Derek's lips drew into a thin line, shaking his head. She didn't know what he was talking about, but somehow just the name sent shivers down her spine. The pieces were all starting to come together and it was scaring her.

"W-what does it mean?" Isaac's voice was shaky as he rubbed the back of the neck, still feeling the claws deep inside his skin even though it was fully healed over by now. A tear ran down his face and onto his jeans, but that was it. One single tear. His eyes were watering but they refused to flood over.

"It means he's going to kill them." Derek shook his head, now under more stress than ever. It was like the entire world was crashing down on him and the ground was crumbling beneath his feet. He hadn't had to deal with the Alpha Pack face-to-face yet. It was only the tip of the iceberg. Things would only get worse.

"No, no...it doesn't mean that. He made them a promise. That they'd be dead by the full moon. It means he'd let them kill each other, it means that—"

"Peter, the full moon is tomorrow night. They'll rip each other apart." The tension in the room was starting to thicken and it seemed like everybody was going to suffocate sooner or later.

"Then we have to find them." Peter resolved, pacing around the room. "What I could get from Isaac...it's not enough. We need him to remember more. There has to be another way." His eyes fell to Carmen, and she looked up at him with nothing but anger in his eyes.

"Is that was you brought me here for?" Her voice cracked as she rose to her feet. "To see if I could magically manipulate him into spitting out trauma? He isn't a fucking lab rat, Peter. Do not treat him like that. And don't you _dare_ treat me like one either. If this happens again, _if you do this to me again_ I swear to God that I will never speak to you or look at you. Do you understand me?" Now it was like she was the adult and he was the child. The cracks in his armor were starting to show. He nodded weakly and swallowed the lump in his throat. She'd come down from this soon enough. He felt like he knew her at least that well.

She wasn't prepared to be used as a weapon, but somehow she felt like that's what things would be coming to. She didn't want to be a danger to people. She didn't want to be a liability. "I'll take you home." Peter quickly took his jacket from a hook on the wall and walked out the door, trailing behind her. Once Derek was sure they were out of ear shot, he got down to eye-level with Isaac to make sure that he was hearing loud and clear.

"Something's wrong. I don't know what it is, but something is wrong. With her and Peter. I can feel it." Peter never formed connections, especially to humans. There was something special about her. Something that he stood to gain. He never did anything without incentive. It was his nature.

"What do you mean?" Isaac just knew that he was shady. He didn't know why Carmen had been spending so much time around him lately, but he wasn't one to judge.

"He's using her. Twisting his way into her brain to get her to trust him. He'll use her against all of us." He shook his head, knowing that now the Alpha pack wasn't the only problem that he'd have on his hands. "Against me. Scott. Stiles. Even you, if he can. He's training her."

"She wouldn't do that." Isaac tightened his fist. She was stronger than that and he was more sure of that than anything else in the world. She had been through too much to trust somebody like Peter. A man whom nobody trusted, not even his own family. She couldn't have been that stupid.

"Then make sure she doesn't."

* * *

_This chapter's song was "The Handshake" by MGMT. _

**I think as the story progresses and as more of the season is shown, this chapter is going to be pretty important for reference because there's going to end up being a lot of foreshadowing in it. Just maybe not for the events that you realize. Or maybe not? hahaha I'm a writer, I'm supposed to vague. It's my job. :)**


	8. Girls

**Chapter 7**

_"Girls are never meant to fight dirty, never look a day past thirty, not gonna bend over and curtsy for you."_

"So...any new developments?" Scott asked, leaning up against a couple lockers as Carmen dropped some books into her bag and shut the metal door. She rolled her eyes at him. "Come on, she hasn't said _anything_ yet?" He had been annoying her about talking to Allison for the past two days. It was tiring on an entirely new level.

"Is she supposed to?" Her eyebrows shot up as she slung her backpack over her shoulder, turning on her heels and walking the opposite direction to shake him off. It didn't work.

"Psh. No, of course not! Nope. Just checking, you know?" He replied nervously, twiddling his thumbs.

"Scott, you're a terrible liar. I told you not to say anything to her." But of course he wasn't going to listen. He wanted them to be friends again more than anything in the world.

_"And um...at school on Monday, could you try talking to Carmen?" Scott fit in uneasily as Allison and Lydia turned back to walk to their cars. "I want you guys to be friends again, you know?"_

_"What do you mean by 'talking' to Carmen?" Allison raised one of her eyebrows crossing her arms over her chest. He stuck his tongue in his cheek and opened his mouth hesitantly. _

_"I mean, you should apologize. For trying to kill Isaac. She kind of hates you for it." He shrugged innocently. "I'm sure if you just went up to her and said you were sorry that she'd be more than willing to be friends again." He was hoping that she'd be more than willing to be friends again. _

_"Look, that was a different me. I'm not proud of it. I don't like to bring old demons up." She shook her head, turning back on her heels. Scott grabbed her wrist. "Scott, if I feel like doing it then I'll do it." She grit her teeth, pulling her hand away from his grip. _

"Okay, I might have said a little bit of something. But she told me that she wasn't going to apologize unless she felt like doing it!" They walked into the cafeteria and looked around for Stiles.

"Is that supposed to make me like her more...?" She couldn't believe they were having this conversation. Things with Allison would either get fixed or they wouldn't, and it would have had nothing to do with him egging anybody on. Carmen wasn't going to be the one to apologize or initiate the conversation because she had no incentive to. There was no point in pushing her to do it.

Stiles spotted them and waved them over to the table, where they sat down with him. Scott next to him, and Carmen across from him. "Did you tell him about what happened at Derek's the other day?" He asked her, making her slap her forehead. It was a useless cycle. Tell Stiles something personal about you. Stiles tells everybody about your personal thing. She had to remember to put a disclaimer before everything she said.

"What happened at Derek's?" Being in the dark would have offended Scott more if he didn't have Stiles to blurt out everything.

"Peter brought me over there and he wouldn't tell me why. Turns out, it was to do this fucking ridiculous Alpha ritual on Isaac. And he wanted me to push him. He basically just took me so he could use me." She took an apple from Stiles's tray and bit into it, disregarding the annoyed look on his face. She was still distraught about what had happened. Was she starting to trust Peter? Is that why she was so upset at him?

"I told you not to trust him." Scott singsonged, shaking his head from side-to-side. She kicked his shin underneath the table and he yelped. "Sorry. Just...I told you." He muttered, rubbing his leg.

"I don't." She shook her head, blowing hot air out of her mouth. "I don't trust him." She repeated it for good measure.

_"Why the hell did you take me in there!?" She yelled at Peter once they got into his car. "Whatever reason, it's fucked up, okay? It's really, really fucked up." She ran her hand through her hair and shook her head. The longer her eyes were closed the more she saw Isaac's golden eyes. A sign of pain. A sign of panic. _

_"I was only doing it as...a lesson." He shrugged, clearly as calm and collected as ever. "The world doesn't let you pick favorites, Carmen. You're going to have to learn that one day. I thought maybe today would be a little taste of that. You can't save everybody." His words were like ice to her. She gaped at him as he started up the car._

_"You did it to make me watch him suffer?" Her voice was high-pitched and it stung his ears a little bit. "You would do that to me?" There was a reason she wasn't supposed to trust him. He was sadistic and cruel...manipulative...disgusting...he was like a snake. He'd never get his hands dirty. He'd never hurt anybody himself. But he would get you to take the apple from the tree and he would get you to eat it. All he had to do was whisper into your ear or pull the strings. _

_"You are a naive teenage girl. Promising your boyfriend that you won't use your gift on him is nothing but stupidity, and you know that." He shook off the feelings of guilt that were starting to perpetuate inside of him. Clearly this hadn't been part of the plan. He never felt guilty about these things. He was much better than that. "No matter how much he hates it, no matter how much he truly despises it...you're going to have to use it on him eventually. Whether to save him or to kill him. Promises are made to be broken."_

"He's dangerous, Carmen. I'd try my best to stay away from him." Scott didn't need one of his closest friends to be on Peter's side. It was just another person who could get hurt and who _would _get hurt. "Just pretend like he's in the background. He's only there when we need him to be."

But she wasn't paying attention to a single thing he said. She was too busy analyzing and overanalyzing what Peter had said to her when they were in the car the other day. _To save him or to kill him. _She wouldn't lay a finger on Isaac. Or anybody else. Regardless of who it was, she wouldn't use her ability to kill somebody...she wouldn't let somebody manipulate her into doing that. It was impossible.

She had no idea what Peter was doing to her, but Scott had fear deeply-seeded in the back of his mind. He wasn't training her as a guard dog or grooming her so he could give her the bite. He'd gotten over that a long time ago. He was training her to become his protégé. He was training her to become exactly like _him. _

_"You are a naive teenage girl."_

* * *

"So have you actually talked to her yet?" Lydia asked Allison as they saw Carmen across the hallway, leaning up against her locker with her phone in her hands.

"No...why should I?" Allison raised one of her dark eyebrows, putting her hands on her hips.

"Because you almost killed her boyfriend." Lydia was still friends with Carmen and she still really liked her. Allison was...indifferent towards her. Clearly she didn't think that there was a reason for anybody to be holding a grudge. "She's still mad about it. You know how much she cares about Isaac."

"Did Scott put you up to this?" Allison was just getting more irritated. She'd apologize when she wanted to. She wasn't going to go up to Carmen and lie straight to her face. She'd much rather apologize when she knew she'd mean it.

"No, I'm just saying that I miss going shopping with all three of you." Lydia rolled her eyes and turned on her heels, walking the other direction. She really did mean it. Last year everything had been so much more _normal._ They went shopping together. They went to the movies together. They studied together. They talked about boys. They were regular teenage girls. Now everything was falling apart and they barely ever spoke anymore. Lydia wanted something stable, for once.

And it made Allison feel like shit.

It wasn't her fault that Gerard had brainwashed her. Her mother had just killed herself, for Christ's sake. She was vulnerable. She was angry. She wanted somebody to pay. Those were mistakes. People forgave you for your mistakes.

_"So...you and Isaac? How's it going?" Lydia giggled, nudging Carmen's shoulder with her own. They were sitting in the fitting rooms of one of their favorite stores at the mall, waiting for Allison to come out with her verdict on a dress. _

_"It's good." She smiled shyly, playing with her hands. "I really like him a lot. He's sweet." Her face turned pink whenever she thought about him. Talking about guys was something she never got to do with her brother, and she didn't think that her brother liked Isaac that much to begin with. He never liked any of the guys she was interested in. _

_Allison came out of the fitting room in a floral print dress and twirled around in it, making Lydia giggle with joy. It was a dress that she had picked out for her friend, and it only affirmed her good taste in clothing. "I love it Lydia. I think I'm going to get it." She nodded at the two of them, going back into the room so that she could change back out of it. _

_"You know, he asked me out freshman year." Lydia laughed, turning back to Carmen. "And I thought he was cute too. He just always came to school with these bruises and cuts all over his face...I was scared, to be honest. And plus I'd always had such a big crush on Jackson, you know?" There was a sadness wavering in her eyes, but she quickly covered it up. "But I'm happy for you! He's a lot hotter now."_

_Carmen burst out laughing and nodded. "He's the first boyfriend I've had who's like...I don't know how to explain it...like, the first boyfriend who's ever cared about me that much? It's weird, I can't really put it into words, but that's how it is." Talking about boys didn't make Lydia jealous, it just made her sad. She missed Jackson. She missed feeling how Carmen felt about Isaac. It hurt, but they were friends. She was happy for her. Carmen had a boyfriend and Allison had a boyfriend. She'd be happy for them even if she didn't want to be. _

"Um...hey, can we talk?" Allison walked over to Carmen when the crowds of people in the hallway started to thin out. The expression that appeared on her features was more shock than actual disgust, so Allison decided that she couldn't have been doing much wrong so far.

"I know Scott asked you to do this. You don't have to listen to him." She dropped her phone into her pocket and crossed her arms over her chest.

"No, I'm doing this because I wanted to. I actually told him that I wouldn't apologize unless I wanted to do it." She rolled her shoulders back and took in a deep breath. "And I'm really sorry. About everything that happened when Gerard was here. About...Isaac." She said uneasily, shifting her weight from one foot to another. "And I'd like it if we could be friends again?"

Carmen's eyebrows shot up. She didn't know how she was supposed to respond. Some part of her hadn't even expected this to happen at all. Allison was far too stubborn. Apparently not. "Um...thank you, I guess." She hadn't even toyed with the idea of them becoming friends again. That was how far and out of reach the apology had been thought to be. "And...sure. We can be friends again."

"Great!" That literally could not have been any more awkward. Now Allison didn't know if she had apologized via her own free will or if Lydia and Scott had made her feel guilty about it. "I'll see you around, then. I gotta get to class." She couldn't have gotten down the hallway any faster. She wasn't scared of Carmen, but she was sort of _intimidated _by her. The look in her eyes threw her off balance, but she assumed it was natural. She was human, not a werewolf. She wouldn't be immune to Carmen's ability no matter how hard she tried.

Somehow an uneasy feeling dug its way into her stomach.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Girls" by Marina and the Diamonds. _

**HOLY MOTHER OF JESUS SO MONDAY'S EPISODE WAS INSAAAAAAANNNNEEEE. I was screaming at my TV the entire time oh my goodness haha. Anyways lately I've been reading a lot of Teen Wolf metas (sorta like theories but not really?) and I've read some really cool ones that talk about the literary archetypes of characters on the show and different kinds of symbolism/motivations/evils and all that stuff so it's giving me a better idea on how to write the story and what direction to go in. I still haven't definitively decided what I'm going to do with Peter as of yet, but I'll figure it out soon enough. haha :)**


	9. What the Water Gave Me

**Chapter 8**

_"Cause she's a cruel mistress and a bargain must be made. But oh, my love, don't forget me when I let the water take me. So lay me down...let the only sound be the overflow, pockets full of stones." _

"Scott, I'm not doing it. It's inhumane. You can't treat him like this."

"You know I wouldn't be asking you if there was another way."

Carmen and Scott had been arguing with each other for the past twenty minutes. She wouldn't let them hurt Isaac like that. She'd protect him. She couldn't see him in pain again, not after what happened at Derek's loft. He was hers to keep safe. If there had been a way to get his memories back from the Alpha ritual, then there had to at least be another option besides plunging his body into an ice bath long enough to drown him.

And she wouldn't push him. She refused to do it. The moment she pushed him was the moment that she listened to what Peter said and now it had gotten to the point where she'd starve to death if he told her to eat. She didn't want to listen to anything he told her. She couldn't just cave like this. She knew she was stronger.

"There _has _to be another way. Don't hurt him like this. Don't you make _me _hurt him like this." There were tears in her eyes and she tightened her fists and shook her head.

"You won't be hurting him. You'll be taking away his pain. You'll be calming him down. You'll be saving Erica and Boyd." Manipulating her into this was the last thing he wanted to do, but he had to. He felt a sense of self-loathing crawling through his body and there was nothing he could do to stop it. It was wrong. It was terrible. It was morally-unfathomable. She was such a good friend to him, nearly like his sister. The more she hurt the more he did too. But forcing her into doing this was a necessary evil. People were going to die if he didn't have her on his side. "Please, Carmen. I'm begging you. I need you to do this."

"And what if I don't?" She couldn't actually be weighing this...breaking her promise to Isaac would be playing right into Peter's hands. It wasn't exactly the route she wanted to go in. She was gnawing down on her bottom lip so much that the skin was starting to peel off. She could taste the metallic flavor of blood on her tongue. It was funny how a drop or two could contaminate her whole mouth so easily.

"Then we go on with it anyways. And Isaac gets pulled through hell and back." The look in her eyes reflected nothing but sheer agony. Just thinking about this was putting her through physical pain.

"And if I do it?"

"He suffers less." Deaton had suggested the idea of Carmen coming to help the same time he had pitched the plan of putting Isaac in the ice bath. Maybe he was doing it as an experiment, or maybe he thought it could actually help. Scott didn't feel like releasing that information. "It's less of a risk if he's more calm."

"He's going to hate me." She shook her head, covering her face with her hands. After she promised him. After she told him that she meant it. But it would be for his protection; for his safety.

"You know that's not true." He scoffed, walking over to her so he could hug her tightly. He didn't know if the sudden wave of guilt he felt inside of him was from her projecting onto him or merely just his own emotions. He decided that it was both. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Isaac. The second-to-last thing she wanted to do was listen to Peter. But the lines were starting to be drawn and she didn't have a choice.

She couldn't hear Scott's voice in her ear, trying to calm her down. All she could listen to was the sound of Isaac's words suddenly dulling her senses.

_"I know you mean it."_

He knew she wouldn't keep the promise. He'd known even as she said it to him. He just loved her too much to call her out on it.

* * *

"Again, why is she here?" Derek knew that he'd be asking that question a lot more as time dragged on. He didn't know what to think of Carmen yet. Peter obviously wanted her for something and Isaac and Scott were willing to put their asses on the line for her best interests. He just didn't see what it was all about.

Yet.

"She's helping." Deaton replied simply, giving him a shrug. Derek continued to pour ice into the metal tub but he couldn't help but look up at the teenage girl as she paced around the room in circles, observing everything she could find. Her fingers ran along the metal tables and her eyes scrutinized the small pieces of ice on the floor. She looked like she didn't want to be there at all. She kept rubbing her shoulders and pulling her sleeves up then pulling them down, like she was still trying to talk herself into doing it. "Carmen, you being relaxed is instrumental if this is to be carried out correctly."

"Great, no pressure." She mumbled under her breath, starting to feel the coldness of the room settle into her body. She talked to Isaac about it, and he was fine with it. She was fine with it. They were fine with it. If she didn't feel like she needed to panic then she wouldn't. But nevertheless, that nagging fear necessitated itself. She'd never really had her abilities called on in this way. It was like she was giving them some sort of service. It should have made her feel important. She just felt guilty instead.

"You shouldn't bite on your nails." Stiles said quietly, walking over to her. She hadn't even noticed that her fingers were in her mouth until he'd mentioned it. "He's gonna be fine." He put his hand on her back and tried to give her a reassuring smile. It didn't work.

"If we can slow your heart rate down enough, you'll be in a trance-like state." She overheard Deaton's voice coming from the doorway.

"So it's like being hypnotized?" Isaac was already starting to chew down on his own fingernails. His nose twitched at a familiar and comforting scent, and his eyes flicked upward to see Carmen with her back to him. She was still nervously shifting on her feet in front of the metal tub that was gradually filling with ice. Her hands were clutched around the rim of the basin and her whole body rocked back and forth.

"Erm...something like that, yes." Deaton answered unsurely, slowly becoming aware of the fact that once Isaac had seen Carmen that there was no point in trying to tell him anything.

"Hey." He said quietly, nudging her shoulder. Her hair was tied up in a long ponytail but there were strawberry blonde wisps out of place everywhere. Her hair was a fiery chaos. It wasn't like her to leave it this messy. He put his hand on top of hers and pried her cold fingers away from the metal rim of the tub. She turned to look at him and it was obvious to him that she didn't want to be a part of this. She would do anything to be some place that was just _away_. Anywhere else but there. "They can do it without you, Carmen. You don't have to watch." His voice was soft, but his tone was so obviously forced it was embarrassing. He told her to leave but he wanted nothing but for her to stay.

"No, I...I um...no, I decided that I was gonna go through with it. So, I'm gonna stay." She laughed to rid herself of the ever-flooding anxiety. She held onto his hand tighter and took a deep breath in. "Scott said that if I wasn't here that you'd suffer more, so I...I didn't want that to happen. I won't let it happen."

"I know you won't." The same exact words from before. His voice was sweet and sincere, but he'd believe her no matter what she said. It was already a voluntary response. He had learned to so blindly trust her that he'd jump from a five-story building if she said she'd catch him. And he'd do it even if he didn't see her at the bottom. She'd give him a promise he was fully aware that she'd never keep and he'd keep telling her that he believed her.

He walked around to the side of the tub and knelt beside it, staring at the ice in front of him. He could feel the bitter cold already radiating onto his skin, causing a sea of goosebumps to find its way across his body. "How slow does his heart rate need to be?" Scott asked, tossing aside the last bag of ice.

"Very slow." Being vague was probably one of the best skills that Deaton had to offer.

"How slow is very slow?" Derek insisted, tensing his shoulders together.

"Nearly dead." Deaton shrugged, making everybody in the room just gape at each other with widened eyes. Isaac was too occupied with the tub to even respond. He reached out to touch the ice then pulled his fingers away sharply, like he had just burned himself.

"But it's safe though, right?" He hadn't expected a real answer when the question had left his mouth.

"Do you want me to answer honestly?"

"No, no. Not really." He muttered, making sure to keep his hands away from the ice as he pulled away from the tub and stood up. He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply, some part of him wishing that he'd just be in a nice, warm bed when he opened his eyes again.

Nope. Not a chance.

"Look, if it feels too risky then you don't have to do this." Of course Derek would say something like that just as they were about to go through with things. That was probably one of the reasons Carmen didn't trust him very much. Sometimes it didn't seem like he ever knew what he was doing.

Isaac bit his lip for a second and nodded, knowing that his mind was yelling at him to stop but his body was edging him closer to it. For Erica and Boyd. For his pack. His family. Before he knew it, he'd already taken off his shirt and Carmen gently took it from his hands before setting it down on the table behind Scott. The two of them held the other's gaze for a few moments, relaying whatever emotion they could.

Fear. Love. Panic. Anxiety. Trust.

He got into the tub and the sensation that speared through the core of his body couldn't have been put into words. He already felt like he was drowning even though his head wasn't under yet. His body felt like it was on fire but he knew the sting he felt was from the bitter cold. Everything was contradicting itself. He gripped the sides of the tub and rocked back and forth, trying his best to get used to it but there was no point. He felt two strong sets of hands on the sides of his bare shoulders and on his chest, then his skin tingled as he sensed another pair of hands on him right at the base where his neck met his shoulders. These hands were smaller and more dainty than the others were. They were gentler and the skin on the palms wasn't as rough. More familiar. Warmer. Safer. _Carmen. _

"Derek and I are gonna push him under. All you need to do is hold on." Scott could see how terrified she was. Isaac could feel her sweat on his skin. "Just hold onto him, that's it." He calmed her enough for her to start breathing at a regular pace. She nodded at him and flexed her fingers against the muscles of Isaac's trapezius, keeping her grip as steady as it would go.

Then he felt it. Flooding over him like wildfire. The pain and the comfort. The torture and the relief. Everything at the same time. He felt the water swallowing him up and no power on earth would be able to stop his reflexes from kicking in. His instincts for survival. He was drowning and his only response was to kick around as wildly as possible. He needed air. He needed to breathe. He was suffocating all over again.

The strength of his body pushed against the forces holding him down and he broke the surface of the freezing water to roar out in agony as his irises flooded with gold and his canines grew sharp as knives. Carmen's heart stopped in her chest. She could sense his pain and suffering as Derek and Scott pushed him back under the water, with Stiles holding his legs in place. His body was sending out cries for help and she could feel them radiating through her entire being. He was begging for release. Begging to make it stop. "CARMEN, DO SOMETHING!" Scott yelled as he grit his teeth, trying his best to hold Isaac below the water.

She snapped out of her trance and plunged her hands back into the cold pool of ice, feeling the skin of his face below her fingers. He was thrashing around violently but she still held onto him. "Shhh, shhh...calm down...Isaac, calm down...it's okay, it's okay..." She whispered soothingly, shutting her eyes as tightly as possible. Her voice was shaky but still commanded listening.

"She can't get through to him like that, there's no way—" Derek yelled but Deaton held his finger up as he watched the effects of her ability gradually take their full effect.

"It's okay, shhh...nobody's going to hurt you..." She kept repeating to him over and over again, like it was some sort of mantra. Her thumbs ran along his defined cheekbones in a way that was all too familiar for the both of them. And it was enough to anchor him down, even just for a little bit. His body went still and his head rose to the surface of the water as he took a breath of air. If her hands were free, she would have stuck both of her middle fingers up at Derek.

"Now remember, only I talk to him now. Too many voices may confuse him and draw him out. Maybe even cause him to panic." Deaton warned everybody, making sure they got the message before he opened his mouth to speak again. "Isaac, can you hear me?"

She took her hands off his face and almost as if on cue his Adam's apple began to bob up and down ferociously as he craned his neck upward in expectancy for her touch to return to his skin but it never came. "Y-yes, I can hear you." The warmth had left his body and his teeth were starting to chatter. His red lips were turning blue.

"This is Doctor Deaton. I'd like to ask you a few questions, is that alright?"

"Y-yes." His teeth were starting to chatter but he stayed surprisingly calm. Carmen distracted herself by looking at his face, pretending to be jealous that his eyelashes always looked so much nicer than hers did. Something about the cold water set his features more sharply than usual, and all the hard lines in his face were so much more easy to see. She could spend hours just looking at him and never get bored. She had to resist reaching out to touch his face again while Deaton was talking to him, otherwise she could lull him out.

"I need you to remember everything you saw in as vivid detail as possible..." Now Deaton's voice was starting to make _her_ go into a trance. It didn't seem like it was the first time he'd done something like this.

"I don't wanna do that, I don't wanna do that, no, no, no...I don't wanna do that..." Isaac swallowed a lump in his throat and started to move his limbs around restlessly, making the lights in the room flicker on and off. The doctor looked at Carmen for assistance and she put her warm hands on her boyfriend's face, soothing him back into submission.

"Relax, Isaac, relax. They're just memories. They can't hurt you."

* * *

_This chapter's song was "What the Water Gave Me" by Florence + the Machine. _

**This is the first part of this chapter, so the second part should be up in a few minutes once I go through everything and figure out if there's stuff I want to fix or add because this scene was so important for me to get right. When I started writing this chapter I realized that it was going to be waaaaaaaaaay longer than anything else and I didn't want to make you guys read like 6,000 words in one go haha. I loved writing this so much omg you have no idea. **


	10. Never Let Me Go

**Chapter 9**

"_And the arms of the ocean are carrying me, and all this devotion came rushing out of me. In the crushes of heaven for a sinner like me, but the arms of the ocean delivered me."_

_"I used to have nightmares about it." Carmen's voice was soft and quiet, almost as if she didn't want anybody to hear what she'd said. Like she was embarrassed of it. "Every night." Isaac was sitting across from her and they both had their legs crossed Indian-style. He started to play with her hands, tracing small circles on her palm with the tip of his index finger. It was almost therapeutic in a way, just touching her skin. "It was always the same thing, one way or another."_

_"What were the dreams about?" His question was innocent enough. He was curious._

_"I kept getting set on fire." He stopped tracing his finger along her palm and he looked up at her. She nodded sadly and tried to laugh it off like it was something silly, but he knew how she felt. He knew better than anybody else would be able to imagine. "And my brother would have to wake me up in the middle of the night because I'd just start kicking and screaming...and he'd say it was only a dream. I didn't need to freak out so much because of it. It wasn't real." Her nose started to tingle the more she spoke but she refused to start crying._

_"I used to have dreams like that all the time...I still do sometimes." He confessed, now holding one of her hands between both of his. "I'd be in the...freezer. Late at night. And sometimes I'd fall asleep in there because I'd just get so tired or screaming for help." He'd never told anybody this before. He was scared to. "And I'd have dreams that I was suffocating."_

_Their situations couldn't have been more different, but somehow they were the same. They knew precisely how the other felt. They knew that talking to each other about such sensitive subjects was much less of a problem than it was talking to anybody else. A certain sense of comfort lingered in the air around them. Emotionally, they were like twins. Talking to each other was like looking into a mirror. _

"THEY SEE ME! THEY SEE ME!" Isaac wailed, kicking around in the tub again. His hand beat around for something to grab onto support for and he found Scott's arm. Carmen shut her eyes again and grabbed onto his deltoids this time, just praying that she could hold her concentration long enough to make him relax. He settled down again and she sighed deeply, shaking her head. Doing this made her feel miserable. She felt like she wasn't helping at all.

His eyes started to move rapidly under his dark eyelids, like he had just entered into an REM cycle. Then they opened.

The light from the lamp above his head made his crystalline blue eyes even brighter as it reflected off his irises. His pupils dilated then contracted, then back again. It was like his eyes were seeing something completely different than what was in front of him. "I hear him..." His voice was dream-like and even. "He...he's talking about the full moon. Being out of control when the full moon rises." He had to have been talking about Boyd.

"Is he talking to Erica?" Deaton asked him.

"I...I...think so, I d-don't know...I can't see...I can't see either of them..." His teeth were chattering and his lips were starting to turn purple. The color from his face was nearly drained.

"Can you hear anything else?" Deaton's voice was clear as he continued to instruct Isaac through whatever trance he was in.

"...Th-they're worried." The lights started to flicker again and Derek and Scott got ready to hold him down again. Carmen was leaning on the table behind her, gnawing down on her thumbnail. She took in the entire picture in front of her...all of them, holding Isaac down. Treating him like a science experiment. It made her stomach turn. "They're worried about the moon...what they're going to do. To each other. They're afraid that they're going to hurt each other."

"If they're acting together on the full moon, they'll tear each other apart." Derek mumbled under his breath, shaking his head. Erica and Boyd had been locked up for so long that it would have been impossible for them to control their shift even if they tried as hard as they could. Isaac was a quick learner when it came to controlling the power the full moon had over him, but Erica and Boyd were less-fortunate.

"Isaac, we need to find them right now. Can you see them?" Deaton's voice continued to speak to him but he was completely submerged in the memory now. He was drowning in it. The lights above him started to flicker once more, and Carmen could sense the fear pouring through his veins. It didn't matter how many times you told him the memory wasn't real and that it couldn't hurt him. He was lost in it. There was no way out. She knew the feeling just as well as he did. Telling him that it wasn't real would only make things worse.

"They're here...!" His voice cracked in terror as he shot up, sitting upward in the tub. The room was almost completely dark now. "They're here, they're here, they're here..." He repeated in torment as he tried his best to push himself as far away from what he saw as possible. He waded around in the small tub, struggling to find some way out. "Oh no...no, no, no, no...they're here, they're here..."

She couldn't breathe. It was like seeing torture right before her eyes. It _was _seeing torture right before her eyes. She could feel his body pleading for help in the pit of her stomach. He was pleading to be let go. His panic took full control of him as he cried out in horror.

"THEY SEE ME! THEY'RE HERE!" He screamed, making tears stream down her face. Her hands were shaking and she felt the most incredible pressure in the world bearing down on her chest. It was like they were connected to each other in that very moment. His pain was her pain. She felt every second of it, every ounce of fear in his blood spilled into her own, and every sense of security she had ever felt was gone.

"ISAAC, TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE!" Derek yelled at him, grabbing onto his shoulder. Carmen started to hyperventilate. Isaac's heart rate skyrocketed. It wasn't just like _he_ was the one projecting his emotions onto _her_, he was projecting his physical state onto her as well.

"Derek, his heart rate! You could send him into shock!" Deaton yelled, trying to regain control of the situation.

"ISAAC, WHERE ARE YOU!?"

"Derek let him go!" Scott yelled, nearly about to rip Derek away from his own beta.

"ISAAC TELL ME NOW! WHERE ARE YOU!? WHAT DID YOU SEE!?"

"I can't see! It's too dark! It's too dark! They're coming! It's so dark!" He cried out like a child in pain, longing to be comforted and held. He had been this way for so long. Alone. In the dark. Nobody there. Nobody was ever there for him. No mother to coddle him and kiss his forehead. Nobody to stroke his hair or whisper into his ear how everything would be okay. Only darkness. Only fear.

"Carmen, do something! Carmen!" Stiles yelled at her, seeing how all the color had just vanished from her face as she held her hands above Isaac's squirming body, trying to stop herself from shaking. It was like she was completely paralyzed. "Carmen, for the love of God just do something!"

Her fingernails dug into his strong shoulders so deeply that it drew blood from his skin. Her senses dulled and she only heard white noise around her as her brain completely dialed in. "Isaac, wake up. It's okay. You're safe. Please." She promised him never to do it, but it was the only way. She took control over his willpower, superseding his mind's desire to stay in the trance. "Just wake up. Everything will be fine. It's okay, Isaac. You're okay."

"ISAAC, TELL US!" Derek didn't seem to be doing anybody favors.

"It's a vault!" He yelled at his Alpha, heaving his chest in and out. "It's a bank vault!" He was so terrified of whatever he had seen that deep down inside she was happy that his memories were taken away. He was suffering so much. Her Isaac. Her poor, poor Isaac. He didn't deserve this. Nobody deserved this. She could feel his warm blood underneath her fingernails as she only dug into his skin harder.

"Isaac, nobody's going to hurt you here. You're safe. Wake up!" Her eyes were shut tightly and everything around her dissolved so she could only focus on him. Only him. Helping him. Saving him. Protecting him. She felt him stop moving and then he shot up in a jolt, nearly pulling her into the tub.

"I saw the name!" He scrambled out of the freezing water, finally out of the trance. Scott and Derek helped him out and Carmen helped Deaton wrap him up in towels. "It's, uh...it's Beacon Hills F-First National Bank. It's a-an ab-abandoned b-bank." He stuttered, his teeth still chattering together as the pink rosiness began to return to his face. "They're keeping t-them locked inside the v-vault."

Carmen wrapped her arms around him tightly, trying to warm him up as quickly as possible. She rubbed her hands up and down his arms to create some friction but he just wouldn't stop shaking. Everybody else just seemed to be standing in the room looking at them with worried expressions. "What?" She asked them, picking up another towel to see if there was some way she could dry his hair off.

"You, um...you don't remember what you said right before you came out of it, do you?" Stiles sighed, looking at the both of them. She raised one of her eyebrows at him in confusion. He hadn't said anything... "You too, Carm?"

"No." They both shook their heads in unison. Everybody in the room just kept staring at them like they were the crazy ones.

"You said that when they captured you that they took you into a room and that there was a body in it." Carmen couldn't remember any of this. Why couldn't she remember it? What was she missing?

"What body?" Thankfully Isaac didn't seem to remember much of it either.

Stiles sighed, rubbing his temples with his fingers. "Erica. You said it was Erica." Isaac felt his stomach drop. There was no way she was dead. She couldn't be. She was a member of his pack...he would have felt something. He would have felt her die. Isn't that how this was supposed to work? "And, um...Carm, you were pretty dialed into getting him out. So you probably didn't really hear much of anything."

"Let's try to regroup." Scott said, trying to take the attention off the two of them. "Carmen, just...work on getting Isaac dry or something. We're gonna go talk." He shook his head, shepherding everybody out of the room. They would only be a wall and a door away from them. Isaac could still hear what they were saying.

"I don't remember seeing a body." He mumbled, shaking his head. She shushed him softly and pulled him over to a chair so that he could sit down and have a little bit of time to relax. "I mean, but maybe I did...I can't—"

"They'll figure something out, Isaac. Don't think about it." She shushed him again, drying his hair with an extra towel. She kissed the back of his neck and closed her eyes, praying that maybe he had been wrong. That maybe there had been another body. She and Erica had never gotten on well, but she didn't want her to die. She knew Erica was important to Isaac and being that selfish would make her a terrible person. "Scott's going to figure something out."

She always depended on Scott to know what to do. How to fix things. He never had reservations about doing the right thing, he just always did it. He was never selfish about anything. Everything about him was so easy to trust. She always found herself making stupid promises she couldn't keep to the people she cared about and it was starting to eat at her. Keeping the people she loved out of danger was a top priority for her and she couldn't do that if she kept making silly mistakes. "Your hands are warm." Isaac mused, sighing as he felt her hands on his bare shoulders.

"Maybe you're just really cold." She dried his hair enough so that it wasn't sopping wet and then she got his shirt from the metal table. She threw the towels on the floor and helped him pull the shirt over his head. The rest of his body was still damp so it stuck to his chest, but he was dry enough. She picked the towels up off the floor and set them on a nearby table, making sure to fold them even though they were wet. Whenever she was on edge she got so compulsively observant of every little flaw that it was annoying to even the most anal retentive people.

"You're doing the thing again." Isaac mumbled, getting up from the chair. He remembered to put it back where she had taken it from otherwise she'd start freaking out. This was something he'd noticed about her only recently. If he was in her room and he moved things around she always rushed to put them back into place. Something had been nagging at her lately but he hadn't been able to figure out what it was. He was scared to ask.

That seemed to be what their relationship thrived on as of late. _He was afraid to ask._ He loved her so much that he was afraid to ask her what was going on at the risk of hurting her in any possible way. Sometimes he felt like it was a cop-out. Other times he felt like it was the best way for things to go.

"Are you okay?" He blew hot air out of his mouth, walking over to sit on a table that was close to the wall. Every time his bare feet touched the ice on the floor it made him a little jumpy.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." She sighed, trying to wipe the beads of sweat that were forming on her forehead. Maybe everything had just caught up with her. "This whole thing is just a little stressful, you know?" He could tell when she was lying to him. It was too easy.

"Yeah, I do." There were still cold drops of water dripping down the back of his neck. The more distant her tone of voice was the more he felt like he was starting to lose her. All he could think about was the conversation he and Derek had about her after the ritual the other day.

_"He's using her. Twisting his way into her brain to get her to trust him. He'll use her against all of us. Against me. Scott. Stiles. Even you, if he can. He's training her."_

_"She wouldn't do that."_

_"Then make sure she doesn't."_

They had come too far and been through too much for him to lose her. He had to put his foot in the door before it closed otherwise it would be too late. "Listen, can I...um, can I stay at your place tonight?" Well that definitely caught her attention. She flicked her head in his direction with a raised eyebrow. "If I can't, that's totally fine. I mean, it's your bed. Up to you." He shrugged, raising his hands up. Playing the guilt card seemed like a much better idea than trying to seduce her into it. Now was probably one of the worst times to think about that.

"If Troy finds you in my room, he might kill both of us." It had been almost a year since she and Isaac had been together and Troy still didn't like him very much. Isaac never really understood why. They both had the same goal. Protect Carmen.

"Oh, that's fine. Just after tonight, it would make me feel a lot better if I had somebody there, you know?" He innocently batted his eyelashes at her, reaching out to hold her hand. He was like a puppy. She couldn't say no to him and he knew that. "But if I can't, that's okay. I'll just have to cuddle with a bunch of pillows tonight. By myself. All alone. In the dark." He sighed, making her roll her eyes at him. Hook, line, and sinker.

"Alright, fine." She stuck her tongue out at him. His face lit up like a Christmas tree. "But if you aren't out by the time I leave for school, then—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll be out, don't worry. Troy won't even know I was there." He rolled his eyes, still excited that they'd finally get the chance to talk about things. He knew that she wasn't going to give anything up unless he initiated the conversation, but he didn't care. He didn't want her to get closer to Peter than she already was and he had to keep her by his side. He didn't want it to come to the point where he'd have to ask anybody for help. He should have been able to take care of it by himself. His girlfriend, his job. He didn't want to look weak, especially in front of Derek or in front of Scott. He was so tired of looking weak for so long. He owed it to himself to prove that he didn't want to run away anymore.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Never Let Me Go" by Florence + the Machine. I really loved the mood that the song from the previous chapter created with the imagery about water so I just decided to carry it over. Plus I've seen both songs live and they were AMAZING so I'm kind of biased haha. _

**Ahhh honestly this scene was one of the ones that I've been excited to write about ever since I started the first fic. It only took like less than ten minutes in the show but I wanted to describe it in as much detail as possible because I just loved it so much. And developmentally speaking, this whole event showcases Carmen's gigantic inner conflict which is basically getting all of her morals/personal code straightened out. Breaking promises to Isaac, holding grudges, using the full extent of her ability to control people like robots, trusting Peter, etc. And then there's the issue of how far she's willing to go if it means protecting Isaac/keeping their relationship intact. I'm gonna tackle a bunch of that. Really cool stuff haha.**

**Plus over the next few chapters I'm pretty psyched to get into her interaction with the twins too. I JUST LOVE CHARACTER STUDY OK? :)**


	11. Gun Shy

**Chapter 10**

_"You're still a wild one, but what is it you're running from? All scared, like you're staring down the barrel of a gun. No pistol could get you, no rifle could shoot fast enough."_

"Why does the water in your shower get so hot?" Isaac asked, walking out of the bathroom and into Carmen's room. He was wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of blue checkered boxers. His hands gripped the ends of the purple towel he had around his neck. "I think I have like third degree burns or something." He gingerly rubbed a red patch of skin on his chest that the neckline of his shirt left exposed. He looked up at her and saw her on the bed, with her knees bent upwards about a foot away from her chest. She had a magazine on her lap, but he could tell that she was only pretending to read it so she didn't have to look up at him.

"I don't know, maybe it's water pressure or something." She didn't really seem all that interested in his question. Like she was thinking about something else. "Go take a cold shower to cancel it out." He wasn't in the mood for her sass.

"Do you wanna tell me what's been up with you lately?" He sat down by her feet and continued to dry his curly hair with the towel in his hands. She peered at him from above the magazine cover then quickly looked back down to what she was reading. "If you feel like you should be telling me something, somehow I feel like now is a more-than-appropriate time for it."

"I'm fine." She replied quietly, shifting her feet away from him. She could take care of the Peter issue by herself. It was something that concerned her and only her. Bringing Isaac into it would have just made everything more difficult.

"I can hear your heartbeat. You're not fine. You haven't been fine." He insisted, gently lifting the magazine from her fingers. He set it down on the bed next to her and put his hands on her kneecaps to straighten her legs out. "Tell me what's going on."

"It's nothing, really. It's not a big deal." She just admitted that there _was_ something wrong. He still continued to stare into her eyes, expecting a more concrete response. "What happened at Deaton's was just high stress, that's all." She shrugged, going to pick the magazine back up. He put his hand on top of hers to make her stop. "Isaac, come on. I told you."

"No you didn't." He shook his head, leaning in closer to her. He put his hand on her face and she sighed deeply, closing her eyes. She reached up and put her hand on his, absentmindedly drumming her fingertips on the back of his palm. "Let me help, for once." Her recent obsessive compulsiveness and quiet demeanor as of late had him worried. She was bottling something up and it seemed like she didn't even want to say it out loud, let alone to him.

She bit down on her lip and thought for a minute or two, then she nodded slowly. She slid over on the bed and cleared a spot for him then once he was leaning up against the pillows she curled up closer to him and rested her face inches away from his own. "Do you...have you..." She was hesitant about what she was about to say and she kept searching for words, but he never grew impatient. Her fingers played with the hem of his shirt while she continued to think. "Have you ever cared about a person you know you should hate?" It sounded like she didn't even want to say it. "Like you know that what they're doing to you is terrible, but...you sort of just hope that they're going to change?"

His hand started to stroke the soft hair on the back of her head. "Yeah, I have." He was just staring up at the ceiling in deep thought while she looked at him. She didn't need him to tell her who he was thinking about. She already knew it was his father. They hadn't talked about it much before, but she could read him like a book. He felt bad about still caring for his dad, even after he had been through all the abuse. He couldn't find it in his heart to hate him. It was like a cloud of guilt followed him around everywhere he walked, constantly showering down on him. "It's Peter, isn't it?" He sighed deeply, shutting his eyes in hopes that he was just dreaming. Derek was right. He shouldn't have let her get that close to Peter in the first place.

"I'm afraid that it's turning me into him." She felt terrible for even letting those words come out of her mouth. "Scott's told me why he's so dangerous and why I shouldn't trust him, and for a while I didn't listen to anything he said. But now it's so difficult not to. Sometimes it's the only thing I can think about." Peter was a killer. A manipulative guilt-tripper. If that was what her fate was then she thought she'd be better off dying.

"He's trying to make you play right into his hands, you know that. You're better than that." She who could manipulate was now the one being manipulated. That's what probably made her so scared in the first place. She needed her gift to be able to do it. Peter did it on natural talent. On his instincts.

"The only reason he brought me to Derek's the day he did the ritual on you was so that I could watch you suffer. So that he could force me into breaking that promise. So that everybody just looked the same to me and so that I wouldn't have a difficult time pushing anybody, no matter what." The only reason he had found Danielle for her was to plant the seed in her mind. She was given the power and now she had to use it. She would be lying if she said that she didn't get a rush by using her ability. It made her feel good. It made her feel _important_. "It's like he was trying to tell me to get used to not keeping your word or get used to not listening to the people you care about."

"Don't let him influence you into making choices you don't want to make. Do what you want to do. Shut him out." His voice was relatively even, but the way his chest rose and fell made her notice that he was uptight. "Because you're going to want to trust him because you think that he's right. You're going to wait for him to come around or change and it'll make you look stupid. That's all it's going to do to you. It'll just make you look pathetic and trust me, it's not worth it." He wasn't just talking to her now. He was talking to himself.

"But what if he _is_ right?" She replied after a few moments of silence, making him stop moving the palm of his hand against the back of her head. "About me...about how I can't pick favorites? How I have to treat everybody the same otherwise I'm a waste of time?" He looked straight into her eyes and he could see his own reflection.

"_You are not a waste of time_. Don't you ever say that again. Don't you _dare._" His voice had suddenly grown hoarse. There were tears forming in his eyes and his nose was stinging. He had been told that so many times. That he was a burden. A waste of time and space. Unlovable. Worthless. Subjecting her to that kind of harm was unthinkable to him. She'd healed those wounds for him and now he was prepared to make sure that she'd never get them herself.

"But Isaac—"

"There are exceptions to every rule, Carmen. _Every _rule. You can say no and you can say yes. You're allowed to do that. He isn't." His other arm was free so he moved it over to tip her chin up with his index finger. "Don't think that the more you use what you have the more you turn into him. There is a very obvious difference between hurting people and caring about them. He wants you to blur that line, but I know you and I know that you won't do it. You're so much better than that." He didn't want her to make the same mistakes with Peter that he had made with his dad. He didn't want her to feel guilty about making her own decisions. Trusting somebody who did nothing but hurt you was a terrible thing. It was abusive.

"I don't know what I'd do without you." She nestled her forehead into the side of his neck and closed her eyes, wrapping her arm around his torso. When those words had settled into him, his lips spread apart to reveal a wide grin full of nothing but joy. To her, she said what she did because it was appropriate. Because she had needed him and he was there. To him, those words were everything. They were proof to him that everything he had suffered through was worth it because he loved somebody and she loved him back. The tears that had formed in his eyes as a result of sadness were now falling onto his cheeks because of happiness. "Thank you." Those two words came out of her mouth so easily but they carried a lot more weight than usual.

"Any time." His fingers twirled around locks of her hair and he just couldn't get the grin to slip off his face. "So you'll be back to normal, yeah?" She laughed softly and he could feel her nodding her head.

"I think I will be." Her laughter was cut short when her trained ears heard the front door open and close. Troy. "SHIT! Turn the light off, turn the light off!" She scrambled up, smacking Isaac's chin with her forehead. He cringed and inhaled sharply, trying to hold himself together as much as possible because he was so afraid of being found. Her hand found the light switch and the room went dark. He could feel her lips up against his ear and it sent a wave of warmth through his stomach. It really shouldn't have turned him on as much as it did. "I'm sorry about your chin." She whispered, kissing the side of his face.

"It's okay." He said back at an equal volume, trying his best not to laugh. He could hear Troy walking up the stairs, then pausing about five feet away from the door. They both held their breath and she put her hand on his chest to muffle the sound of his heartbeat while her brother listened at the door.

He stood for a couple more seconds then walked back down the stairs. He probably could tell that something was a little sketchy, but he decided that he wasn't in the mood to bust somebody's balls tonight. Once they released the air that they had been holding in their chests, Isaac and Carmen started to laugh so hard that sounds barely came out of their mouths. "Oh my God, that was so close." She buried her mouth into his neck to mask her laughter. "He probably knows you're here."

"Hey, I think he's starting to actually like me." The room was still pitch black but it wasn't difficult for him to find her face. He traced his fingers along the smooth skin of her cheek bones and smiled faintly when his fingers touched her lips. "I'm hot. You can't hate me for very long." He could feel her smile beneath his fingers and he bent his head downward to match his mouth against hers. There were a lot of things she loved about him. She loved how he was so sweet and gentle, and how he was when they were alone together. He was vulnerable.

But she adored how cocky he could be at times. The confidence that came with being a werewolf. The "look at me, I'm beautiful" snide mentality or the sarcastic bite that his words took on sometimes. He didn't have that before he turned, and in the beginning of their relationship she wished he hadn't had it at all. But it had grown on her. "My brother doesn't hate you because of how you look, he hates you because he knows you're the reason I'm not a virgin..." She mumbled against his mouth, moving her hands to grab onto his strong shoulders as she felt him on top of her.

"That's me, Isaac Lahey. The virginity thief." He bit on her bottom lip and moved his hands up and down the sides of her thighs. She laughed and rolled her eyes. "You took mine too...should Derek hate you?" She was sort of sure that was already true, but it definitely wasn't because she was having sex with Isaac. That was a conversation for another night.

"He'll start liking you. Eventually." She felt him squeeze her ass and it took all of her willpower to make herself squirm away. "He's going to do more than kill you if he walks in on us. No." She pulled his hands away but he still kept sucking on her neck. She really wouldn't have minded about all the hickeys he left on her if they'd go away easily, but they never did. She could bite right through his skin and it would heal back within five seconds. Life just wasn't fair.

"The lights are still off," He reasoned, repositioning his hands to pull her shirt up. Again she pushed him away. "Well what about tomorrow night? He's always late on Wednesdays." He had learned to memorize Troy's schedule just because his life necessitated it. He couldn't help himself. "I'm a teenage boy with a beautiful girlfriend. You thinking that I'm not going to have hormones is completely out of whack."

Flattery wasn't going to get him anywhere. "Maybe. If I feel like it." She turned over on her side and he held her close to the front of his body. His height made him an effective big spoon. "You asked to spend the night, and that's what you're going to be doing. No funny business." She mumbled, feeling him start to laugh. "What is it?"

"Nothing." He quieted down, resting his face against her shoulder blade. He closed his eyes and pulled her in closer to him. He could feel her heart beating steadily in a pattern he had come to recognize with ease. "I just love you." He inhaled the scent of her skin, smiling in ecstasy. He promised to himself that he wouldn't let her go near Peter. She'd cared enough for him and he owed it to her to return the favor.

"I love you too."

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Gun Shy" by Widowspeak. _

**News on the show if you guys haven't heard yet: this past week Crystal Reed was on the show "Fashion Police" and she said that the first scene she filmed for 3B with Sharman was a makeout scene, which means two things. 1) Alisaac is canon. So we'll see how that plays out in this fic or even if it manages to play out at all haha. 2) ISAAC IS ALIVE IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE SEASON. SO THAT'S GREAT NEWS. **


	12. Goshen

**Chapter 11**

_"You never found it home, you're not the girl I used to know. What would you hide from such a glow? If I had only told you so..."_

"Random disclaimer..." The sing-songy voice of Tyler, the Creator rang in Carmen's ears as her eyes opened but then quickly shut due to the bright sunlight pouring through her windows. "Hey, don't do anything that I say in this song, okay? It's fuckin' fiction! If anything happens, don't blame me, white America! Fuck Bill O'Reilly. Four...three...two...one..." Her hand frantically hit the off button on her iPhone speaker before the overly-aggressive beat of "Radicals" blew through her room. She needed something angry and loud to make her get up in the mornings. That was her only option.

She groaned and tried her best to see if she could go to sleep for a couple more minutes, but she could feel something hard up against her back. She thought it was her shirt bunching up so she reached behind her to fix it but her hand found something far more different. "Fuck!" She yelped, trying her best to scramble out of the sheets. She ended up falling off the bed with the entire comforter on top of her. Isaac didn't even seem to notice. He smacked his lips together and turned onto his back, sprawling his lanky limbs over her mattress.

She ran her hand through her hair and she could feel her cheeks starting to heat up. She couldn't help herself as her eyes wandered back onto him. It was distracting. His morning wood had pitched a massive tent right in the center of his boxers and he was still fast asleep. She picked the comforter up off the floor and covered him up with it, hoping that she'd be able to forget about what had just happened. "Is it time for me to leave yet?" He mumbled tiredly, rubbing his eyes with both of his hands. His voice was deep and hoarse so he cleared his throat to get it to go away. He didn't want to get up from the bed. It smelled just like her and that made him so much more comfortable than anything else in the world.

"No, I just woke up." She laughed softly, sitting down next to him on the bed. She cleared her throat awkwardly and tried to find some way to point out the problem that he obviously needed to take care of. "You, um...sorta...uh...boner." She stated dumbfoundedly, making him lift the covers up and nod in approval rather than embarrassment.

"Can I have some help?" He grinned cheekily, batting his eyelashes at her. She rolled her eyes and started to pull him out of the bed. "Whaaaaaaat?" He whined, trying as hard as he could to resist. He was eventually dragged onto the hardwood floor and he groaned before getting to his feet. "Is that a no?" He asked as she started to push him towards the bathroom so that she wouldn't have anything to do with getting rid of his boner.

"If it's not gone in five minutes then I'm going to be very upset. Don't make me late." She shoved him into the bathroom and shut the door behind her. She'd just leave him to his devices. He had an imagination. He'd seen her naked before. He had material to work with.

"It's not my fault! Blame science!" He yelled from behind the door, making her shake her head. She walked over to her closet and decided that now would be a good time to pick out the clothes she was going to wear. She checked her phone for the forecast and ended up getting a few messages from Stiles instead.

**Stiles - **Yo I'll pick you up today. Something we gotta talk about. Bank vault.

**Carmen -** What time?

**Stiles -** Idk but soon. Scott stayed over last night. He already called shotgun.

**Carmen -** Can't we just talk at school? Troy has to leave so I can sneak Isaac out.

**Stiles -** Gross. I'll see you there.

She laughed and got back to checking the weather. It was supposed to be 45 degrees that morning. Carmen thought she'd moved to California, sheesh. Isaac came out of the bathroom just as she was setting a pair of high-waisted jeans and a white cropped sweater on her window seat. His hair was messy and he had a sleepy look in his eyes but he was still standing, so that was a good sign. She opened up her dresser to get out a bra and underwear and she ran over to peck him on the cheek before racing into the bathroom to shower. He chuckled to himself and shook his head, choosing to lethargically walk over to her bed and settle in for some more time to sleep rather than to remain awake.

She was done in a little under twenty minutes and she came out with a towel wrapped around her hair in a turban and a matching purple bra and pair of underwear on. He was snoring and she was almost completely positive he was getting drool on her pillowcase. She put her jeans on and walked over to him, trying her best to shake him awake. "No...five more minutes...too early..." He grumbled sluggishly into the pillow, turning over onto his side when she started to shake him even more.

"Isaac, come on. If you're gonna be here at least help me." She groaned, poking his sides. His eyelids fluttered open and he moved the pillow over his head so he could try to go back to sleep. "No more sleepovers then." She warned him, immediately making him throw the pillow off and shoot up to his feet. He slowly looked her up and down with a small smile playing on his thin lips, being very grateful that it was the sight he got to wake up to. Her jeans hugged tightly around her long legs and they rose to right under her navel. She hadn't put a shirt on yet, but he wasn't complaining. Purple looked nice on her, that was for sure. Her hair was still up in the towel but a few damp locks of her hair found their way to her shoulders, dripping water down her pale skin.

"Alright, what do I have to do?" He tried in vain to fix his ferociously unkempt hair because he could feel it sticking up but he decided that it would go away on its own. She pointed to how messy the bed had become, with the sheets tangled up and the pillows on the other side of the mattress. "Come on, really?" He whined, rocking himself from side to side. She nodded and he hung his head in disappointment while he began to make the bed. She could get used to that.

She continued to move through her morning routine completely distraction-free until her brother called her name from downstairs and the mascara wand she was holding fell from her hand and onto the floor. She cleared her throat nervously and picked it up, smoothing out her sweater to try and relax herself. "Yeah?" She called down to him from the top of the stairs.

"Come down and eat breakfast." He looked up at her with an annoyed look on his face. "And tell Isaac he can come down too." He grumbled under his breath, shaking his head as he walked back into the kitchen. He hadn't heard them having sex at any point through the night, so he was at least a little satisfied with that. He just didn't know why his sister found it necessary to be sneaking her werewolf boyfriend in and out of their house.

"My brother made you breakfast." Carmen stuck her head into her bedroom and noticed that Isaac was nearly done making the bed. He even fluffed out the pillows. What an angel. Both of his eyebrows shot up but he felt his stomach begin to grumble so he reluctantly started to walk towards the door. "You might want to put some pants on first, though." She scratched the back of her neck, looking down at his boxers.

"Right." His cheeks turned pink and he came back out a few moments later wearing the pair of sweatpants he had worn the day before. He followed closely behind her down the stairs and stuck his hands into his pockets as the kitchen came into view. There were two plates of pancakes on the kitchen table, and Troy was leaning on one of the counters going through messages on his Blackberry. Isaac swallowed a hard lump in his throat and for some reason he could feel a small tear forming at the corner of his eye. Troy had known that he'd been there for the entire night, but instead of kicking him out he made him breakfast instead.

He found it strange that no matter how much he thought Carmen's brother hated him, this hate was far more different than what he had been subjected to for most of his life. His standards weren't very high to begin with. "Go eat." She nudged him gently, noticing that he was frozen in place. He nodded weakly and picked up the plate and fork, choosing to stand up and eat instead of sit down at the table. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten chocolate chip pancakes. "Does Derek feed you?" She laughed, looking up at him from her chair.

His face turned red and he laughed awkwardly, not knowing how he was supposed to respond. He seemed to feel so much at home at her house even if her brother was there. The places he was told to call home never seemed to be remotely close to that. "These are really good." He nodded in Troy's direction, making him look up and nod in acknowledgement.

"Just know that if you're over here again and I hear _anything _going on in that room I will not hesitate to stab a syringe full of estrogen into your balls. I'm a surgeon. I have access to that shit." Carmen spit her food out.

"TROY!" She screamed, looking up at him with bewildered eyes. Isaac swallowed the gigantic lump in his throat and continued to eat his food, trying not to make it obvious that his knees were shaking. "Could you not?!"

"I gotta protect the family. And my sanity." He wagged his finger at her. He knew this day would come. It was the day that his dad had dreaded for so long, Troy just thought that he'd be around to deal with it. He thought things would be different because he was her brother and that they'd have more of a friend relationship. That wasn't the case. "He's not gonna be here when I get back from work tonight is he?" He didn't really want to think about cooking dinner for more than two people.

"No, he won't be." Carmen sighed, running her hand through her hair. Her brother and Isaac squaring off wasn't exactly optimal. She started to feel her phone buzzing in her pocket and she let out a loud groan. She had been trying to ignore it for the last fifteen minutes but Stiles was so bent on annoying her that she had to answer her texts.

**Stiles - **Yeah I really have to pick you up I won't take no for an answer

**Stiles -** Isaac can find his own way home and I'm sure Troy won't kill him

**Stiles -** Carm seriously answer me

**Stiles -** Does having sex with Isaac make you too important to answer me

**Stiles -** Who gave you the right to ignore me

**Stiles -** WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT

**Stiles -** I really need to pick you up this is important

**Stiles -** Tell Troy you're gonna be out late tonight

**Stiles -** C

**Stiles -** A

**Stiles -** R

**Stiles -** M

**Stiles -** E

**Stiles -** N

**Stiles -** I'll be there in ten minutes sweetheart :)

"God, I hate you." She mumbled to her phone, rolling her eyes when she saw the last message. "Stiles is picking me up. Also, he says I'm gonna be out late tonight. I have to finish getting ready." She said quickly as she put her fork down and dragged Isaac up the stairs with her.

"You're not gonna leave me alone with your brother are you?" The panic was apparent in his voice. He wasn't quite ready to take that step yet. "Because honestly I don't think that he and I have reached that point in our relationship where we can be left alone together without him threatening to _chemically castrate _me."

"Relax, relax. Derek can come pick you up after I leave." She smiled at him, pinching his rosy cheeks. She was rushing to get her things together and she had to make sure not to trip over her own two feet because she was so flustered. "Whatever Stiles needs to talk to me about is clearly important, and it has something to do with the bank vault."

"Your brother really, really, really doesn't like me." He was still unbelievably uncomfortable with this whole idea. She pouted at him and held both of her hands in hers, swinging them from side-to-side.

"Well he made you breakfast! And there's nothing for you to be scared of. You're a werewolf, he's not. Duh." She rolled her eyes at him, standing on the tips of her toes to kiss him. "He won't do anything that I'll get angry at him for, I promise. And he has to leave for work in a few minutes anyways." Her hands found their way to his chest and he smiled onto her mouth when he felt them there. She heard the horn of the Jeep honk outside her house just as he was starting to get comfortable and put his arms around her waist. "Isaac, I gotta go." She tried to pull away but he wouldn't let her.

"But I don't wanna let go..." He whined, pecking her lips continuously every time she tried to move away.

"You wouldn't have to if you'd just come back to school." She pouted, rolling her eyes at him.

"After we find—"

"Yeah, I know. I know." She sighed, prying his arms away from her body. Erica and Boyd weren't the only reason he wasn't coming back to school. He still had a couple days left until he healed up all the way from the Alpha attack. "I gotta go. Stiles and Scott are waiting for me. I'll probably end up seeing you later tonight anyways." She kissed him one more time before she picked up her stuff and left her bedroom, leaving him standing alone. She raced out the front door just as Stiles was about to honk the horn again.

"Where the hell have you been!? I've been waiting out here for at least like ten minutes!" He yelled out the window, making her roll her eyes as she opened the door to get into the backseat.

"Morning, Scott." She smiled at him then stuck her tongue out at Stiles. "So what got your panties in a bunch so bad that I had to go through my brother threatening to inject Isaac's balls with estrogen?"

"Oh my God, I love your brother. He's the man of my dreams." Stiles laughed, pulling out of her driveway. If he wasn't driving she would have probably punched him in the stomach. "Anyways, we found out how the vault got broken into. We're gonna meet up at Derek's tonight but we're not gonna go through with it until after it gets dark. Make sense?"

"And how do I factor into this?" She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling her phone buzz in her pocket. "Oh, for fuck's sake." She mumbled under her breath.

**Isaac -** I found the Power Rangers movie in your DVD cabinet and I wanna watch it but I can't work the DVD player help meeeeee

**Carmen - **I thought Derek was supposed to pick you up

**Isaac - **He's tied up at the moment :)

**Carmen - **Isn't there anything else you can do?

**Isaac - **I could go through your closet and wear all your clothes

**Carmen - **Just put the DVD into my laptop omfg don't touch my clothes

"You have to watch Isaac. It's the full moon and since he's not totally healed we don't know how he'll respond to it." Scott said, leaning back to look at her. "Derek and I are gonna go to the bank. Stiles and Peter are gonna be at the loft. If anything goes wrong with Isaac you gotta push him to stop the shift."

"You think I can really do that?" She raised an eyebrow at them. She'd never bothered to try it before but she was sure that it wasn't possible. She couldn't push werewolves unless she touched them. Even then, they had to be willing to let her in. Controlling their shift was something she obviously thought was impossible.

"I think you can do a lot of things." Scott laughed with a half-smile, undoing his seatbelt as Stiles put the car in park. He had no trouble believing in her. He didn't know what she was fully capable of and he knew that she didn't either. But they both knew it could be something incredible.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Goshen" by Beirut. _

**Sorry this took so long! I've been trucking along with all my summer reading haha. Next chapter is Carmen's first run-in with the twins so look forward to that. :)**


	13. Posse

**Chapter 12**

_"It's not you, maybe I'm just too pedantic. I'm a self-confessed idealist and romantic. You say, join the gang—be my yang and I'll be your yin. But try as I might I'm not your type, I don't fit in."_

"I gotta get to history, but just meet me and Stiles—"

"Out by the Jeep." Carmen finished Scott's sentence and put her hand on his shoulder with a warm smile on her face. They'd been doing that a lot more now—finishing each other's sentences. They were on the same page most of the time and it was a great feeling. "I got it, I promise. Besides I know you guys won't leave without me." He chuckled and nodded, ruffling her hair before he jogged down the quickly-emptying hallway. She liked the new him. The always-on-time and focused Scott. She was proud of him for keeping it together so well, especially after Allison.

"Has anyone ever told you that you two make a really cute couple?" When Carmen closed her locker she saw a guy in a leather jacket leaning up next to the wall next to her. He was tall, but she couldn't tell if he was taller than Isaac. Isaac's body was so lanky that it was impossible to compare his height to anybody. This guy was cute, too. Chiseled jaw and brown eyes, tanned skin, and a smirky half-smile. She'd never seen him before so she assumed he was new.

"Scott?" She laughed, putting her books into her bag. "Oh God no, he's like my brother." As she continued to walk towards the library she noticed that he started to follow her.

"I'm Aiden, by the way." He stuck his hand out to her and she shook it, eyeing him with an interested look on her face. What was making him so friendly towards her? This was the first time she'd ever seen him around school before.

"Carmen." She smiled, nodding at him in thanks when he opened the library door for her. "Are you new here?" She went to sit at a table and he pulled a chair out for her so that she could sit. He seemed sweet enough. He just didn't look like the type that needed to try hard to make friends.

"Yeah, my brother and I just transferred." He sat across from her and folded his hands on the table, trying to hold her gaze for more than the couple seconds she was allowing. "So, if Scott's not your boyfriend does that mean you're single?" He raised a curious eyebrow at her, making her cheeks turn pink as she laughed.

"No," She shook her head, biting down on her lip. "My boyfriend isn't in school right now, but I'm sure you'll see him around once he comes back. Isaac Lahey." She slowly looked up at Aiden as the words rolled off her tongue and she could see something in his face change. It was tiny; something that could be easily mistaken for another emotion. But she was trained enough to notice what it was.

Aggression.

"Oh." The look on his face suddenly morphed into disappointment. The aggression had disappeared just as soon as it had shown on his features. "Because I was just going to ask you if you wanted to go out sometime." He laughed nervously, scratching the back of his neck. He was trying to make her feel guilty. "Wow, now I just feel like a total idiot. I should have expected a girl as beautiful as you to have a boyfriend already." He was being so sweet that it made her stomach turn. Now he had her feeling like garbage. _  
_

"Well, you said you had a brother right? Maybe we could all go out as a group or something, you know?" She was taking his bait so easily that he was starting to pity her. Deucalion said that she was valuable. Aiden didn't really understand why, though. She definitely wasn't a werewolf, but she definitely wasn't completely human either. He just knew that he had to get close to her. He knew that she was part of Scott's makeshift pack, but he didn't know that she was with Isaac. Things would have been a lot easier if that hadn't been the case. "I'm sure Isaac wouldn't mind." Somehow she knew that this had disaster written all over it but she couldn't help her natural curiosity.

He leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smirk on his face. He looked beyond her and saw Lydia standing by Allison, looking over at him. "Great. You can give me your number." He offered her the palm of his hand and a ballpoint pen. She laughed softly and nodded, writing down the digits of her cell phone number on his hand. When she touched him he felt an undeniable flood of warmth flood over his body and he suddenly got lightheaded. He leaned in closer to her face and when she looked up he was staring straight at her with enlarged pupils and half-closed eyes.

There was something about that look that screamed familiarity to her, even if she'd never met him before. Even if that look had come from another person.

_"Sorry." Isaac mumbled, quickly picking up his books and rushing past Carmen, clearly embarrassed that he had just made an idiot out of himself and clearly upset that somehow Jackson had already gotten to her. She stuck her hand out and put it on his exposed forearm, making him instantly flick his attention towards her. His pupils dilated to twice the size of what they had been. It was like he had hearts in his eyes. She could hear his heart beating out of his chest. _

It was the look that Isaac had given her when she first pushed him.

She quickly let go of his hand and got up from the table, carrying her bag with her out of the library. Aiden came out of his trance and blinked his eyes a few times, wondering what had just happened. Carmen was gone, but her number was still written down on his hand. He'd do what he could to tempt her away from Isaac. The pack wanted Scott, and if she was as close to him as she said he was then there would be no problem using her to lure him in. Aiden would have a little fun with it while he was going at things.

"Did you see how close he was getting to her?!" Lydia squealed at Allison as they moved back and forth between the shelves of books. "I'm like ninety-nine percent sure that she just pushed him! And she wrote her number down on his hand!" She couldn't help it if she was a little jealous. Aiden was supposed to be _her _distraction and Carmen already had Isaac.

"I'm sure that she wouldn't cheat on Isaac." Allison tried her best to hush her friend but it was no use. "She's probably just making friends with him or something. He's new." Right now she couldn't have cared any less about Lydia's quest to find some way to get Jackson off her mind, and she also decided that defending Carmen was the best route to go down now that they were friends again.

* * *

"Ready to go?" Stiles asked Carmen as he saw her approaching the Jeep. She nodded slowly and got into the front seat, forcing Scott to sit in the back this time. "Something up with you?" She was just acting off to him. He didn't know what it was, but she was just...off.

"Do you know anything about that new kid Aiden?" She spoke up, deciding that it would be best to tell them what was on her mind instead of hiding it. Scott had been fumbling around with his backpack in the back seat but he suddenly stopped when she mentioned the name. "What?"

"Carmen, stay away from him." His tone was commanding; a voice she had heard from her father more than enough times. "And his brother too." There was something about them that he could sense, and he just knew that it was bad. He'd noticed it when they passed him and Stiles in the hall earlier that day. It was a strange burning sensation inside of his stomach, like he just knew that nothing but terrible things could come from those twins.

"He tried asking me out today, but I told him about Isaac and I felt kind of guilty." She confessed uneasily, making Stiles slap his own forehead. "So I sorta gave him my phone number."

"You're like some sort of magnet for these weirdos, I swear." Stiles rolled his eyes, starting up his car. First it was the badass version of Isaac, then it was the notorious sociopath Peter Hale, and now it was one of the sketchy-ass twins. She was asking for trouble.

"I can handle myself." She scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "And after all this time I can't believe that you don't have faith in me." Time and time again she proved herself, but everybody always thought that she needed help. She hated it.

"Come on, you know that's not true." Scott couldn't let anything happen to her. If she was valuable enough to Peter and to Deaton then she would be valuable to the Alpha Pack, and he had to keep her safe from that. He had an obligation to her. "I just want you to be careful. There's something about those twins that I really don't like and I'd just like it if you didn't go out on dates with them."

"Oh man, wait'll I tell Isaac!" Stiles giggled like a school girl, pulling up to a traffic light. "Man he's gonna want to rip their heads off!"

"It's not a date!" She laughed, nudging his shoulder playfully. "I'm just being friendly, okay? And don't tell Isaac." She mumbled quietly, making the two boys burst into laughter. She knew how jealous and protective he could get. A little secret wouldn't hurt.

"Then don't hang out with them." Scott bargained with her, making her mouth open in shock. "If you promise us to not hang out with the twins, then we won't let Isaac loose on them." He batted his eyelashes innocently, flashing her a cheeky grin.

"Scott, come on! They're new! I just want them to have friends, okay? I'll feel bad after I gave him my number. Seriously, don't try to barter with me." Scott could be just as annoying as Troy was.

"Okay, once. You can hang out with them _once._" He wagged his index finger at her, making her shake her head and groan. "That's it. I'm compromising, Carmen. Just don't get close to them. We don't know anything about them and they could be really dangerous."

"Fine, whatever." She grumbled under her breath. She'd pass her own judgement on Aiden and his brother. She didn't need Scott to be talking into her ear while she did it either. She didn't want _anybody _talking into her ear. Peter had already given her enough of that. "Just as long as you don't get Isaac upset, I'll do it. Whatever." She repeated it again for good measure and Stiles rolled his eyes at how childish she was being. They were telling her that the twins were bad news but all she wanted to do was rebel against their judgement.

"Help me get the blueprints out of the trunk." Stiles said to her, pressing the button on her seatbelt so that she could get out of the car. He turned around and gave Scott a look that said _I got this _and he followed her out to the trunk while Scott made his way to the front door of the complex where Derek's loft was.

"So where did you get these anyway?" She asked him as she took out a rolled up blueprint of the bank out of his trunk.

"You gotta listen to him, Carm." She turned to face him with a pout. Of course he would try to pull her into something like this. "I know that you wanna go your own way about stuff, but with everything weird that's been going on lately, he's under a lot of stress. The least you could do is listen to him."

"Are you saying that I'm a liability to him?" Her voice was quiet and she put the roll of paper back into the car. She slowly looked up at him and he felt an intense pang of regret in his heart when he saw how much he had hurt her.

"No, God no. Of course not." He shook his head, realizing that the way the words had come out of his mouth wasn't the best possible phrasing. "Carmen, no. I'm just saying that if you got into trouble that—"

"It would put Scott through stress! You're saying that I'm a liability to him!" She said incredulously. He was supposed to be on her side. He was her best friend.

"You know that's not what I meant!" He didn't know how else he was supposed to say it without her taking it as an insult. She'd never let people protect her anymore and one day it was going to come back to bite her in the ass. Her sudden obsession with being okay by herself was going to get her killed and Stiles couldn't help but play host to that horrifying fear. Just like Isaac, he couldn't bear to lose another person in his life. He didn't want to lose her. "We're trying to keep you safe!"

"I can take care of myself." She grit her teeth together, turning on her heels. He grabbed her wrist but she turned around and stared right into his eyes. "_Let go of me_, Stiles." She growled, making his brown irises turn to glass.

And he did.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Posse" by Kimbra. _

**Ever since I posted the last couple chapters I've gotten like 10 messages on Tumblr from people telling me how much they like the fic and that makes me so happy ahhhh! My URL is suburbanmoses if you guys want to check it out. I definitely reblog a lot of Teen Wolf stuff haha. **

**Anyways, I'm happy that I finally got to Carmen's first run-in with Aiden so that should keep you guys interested for a little bit haha. :)**


	14. Pink Bullets

**Chapter 13**

_"I was just bony hands as cold as a winter pole. You held a warm stone out new flowing blood to hold. Oh, what a contrast you were to the brutes in the halls. My timid young fingers held a decent animal." _

"I don't need a babysitter." Isaac mumbled, shuffling his feet around on the hardwood floor of the bedroom he was occupying in Derek's loft. He'd only been given less than an hour's notice that Carmen was coming along with Stiles and Scott so he rushed to clean up his room before she could see it. Her room was always so neat that he would have felt completely embarrassed if she'd walked in and seen his boxers hanging off his desk chair. He didn't even have that many things to mess the room up besides his clothes, but somehow things just got disorganized.

The room was a lot plainer than she had expected, but it was also a lot darker too. The walls were painted a dark blue but he had a couple of lamps to brighten everything up. She'd never been up to his bedroom before so she didn't really know what to expect. "I'm not babysitting you. Just think of it as me coming over to hang out or something." She replied quietly, setting her bag down on the floor next to his bed. The full moon was supposed to rise in an hour and she didn't know what she was supposed to expect from him. When she was with Scott on the full moon it was almost as if nothing happened to him unless he wanted it to.

"I still think it's babysitting." He shook his head, still eyeing her nervously as she sat down on his mattress. It really shouldn't have been different than any time he had been in her room, which was _all the time. _But somehow it was. He was afraid that there would be something about his room or even himself that she didn't like and that it would scare her away. He didn't know why he still had that fear, but it was unlikely that it would ever go away. She laid back onto his pillows and took a book out of her purse. _Into the Wild _by Jon Krakauer. "Is that for English?"

He climbed onto the bed and pulled her over towards him so that she was sitting in between his legs. She leaned back onto his chest and felt his heart beating against the center of her back. "Nope. I'm just reading it." Now she had that look of concentration on her face that he loved to watch. He'd always find himself getting distracted from paying attention to something just by _seeing_ her paying attention to something. He wrapped one of his arms around her waist and raised his other hand to caress the hair at the crown of her head. She felt the calming touch of his fingers brushing by her forehead and she smiled faintly then leaned back farther into his chest.

"You read too much." He knit his eyebrows together, kissing the side of her face to see if he could take her mind off the book. That scene was all too familiar for the both of them.

"Maybe you read too little." She remarked softly, making a chuckle rise from his chest. The first rule of the first moon: don't have sex. They both knew that, but it seemed that only she wanted to adhere to it. The full moon just made him more needy. "So did you really watch Power Rangers today?" She asked him as she turned one of the book's pages.

"Yeah, it was cool." He didn't seem too interested in talking about that right now. "Can I turn the pages?" He just wanted to feel the paper of the book beneath his fingers and he didn't want to feel completely useless to her. Once the full moon came up he knew that he'd be searching for a memory to anchor him. For some reason it was the simple memories with her that made him feel the most human. He thought it was dumb to be scared that he'd hurt her because he always told himself he was in control. But he couldn't help but ask the "what if?" and that made him a little bit uneasy.

"Um, yeah. Sure." Nobody had ever asked to be her page-turner before. He'd just turned into a puppy. She looked up at him and noticed how his eyes would jump from looking at her to looking out his window, waiting for the full moon to get into view. "You'll be fine." She squeezed his forearm reassuringly, smiling at him. He swallowed a hard lump in his throat and lifted his hand from her stomach to hold the end of the page she was reading. "Page." She called softly, making him jump slightly like he had been concentrating on something else. He turned the page for her and felt the rough paper run underneath the pad of his thumb.

"Sorry," He mumbled quietly, taking in a deep breath. He just couldn't think about anything except the full moon now. He was so scared that it would hurt more than the other times and that he wouldn't be able to control himself. "So did Scott really say that he thinks you could control my shift?" He asked her, making her stop reading.

"Yeah, he did." She nodded, closing the book. He was too jittery for her to focus and she didn't want to ignore him for the sake of reading. Isaac let out a sigh of relief and held his head backwards, looking up at the ceiling. That was good. That was _really _good. He trusted Scott's judgement and that was enough for him to relax.

"Do _you _think you can do it?"

"Mmhm." She nodded, turning her head to look at his bedside clock. Twenty minutes until the moon rose. He groaned and tightened one of his fists, trying to get the sudden flush of pain to ebb away on its own. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." He got up from the bed and started to pace around the room, trying to get his mind off the shift. He had to anchor himself before it even started otherwise it would already be too late. He ran his hand through his hair and gnawed down on his lip while she couldn't do anything but stare at him in confusion. "I'm fine, I'm fine..." His voice started to crack and he started fidget with his hands. He yelped in pain as he started to feel himself rip apart and he tried his best to not give in at that very moment. This pain was different than before...normally it was manageable but now it was unbearable.

Derek had told him that the light of the full moon would help his internal wounds to heal, but he told him that it would hurt more than any other shift he had experienced. He just had to hold onto his humanity as tightly as he could.

_"You're cute." She mused, twirling some of his curls around her fingers as she stared at his face in deep thought. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he laughed softly, looking up at her. When their eyes connected he felt a cozy warmth surging through his body. "You're cute and I love you." He felt her hand leave his hair and touch his cheek instead. _

_"I can honestly say that nobody's ever said that to me before." He nodded in approval of her comment, making her throw her head back in laughter. She let the reality of his words sink in and the smile slowly started to disappear from her face. _

_"Well then they're obviously idiots." Her voice was suddenly serious as she observed the features on his face. He was a lot more than just cute. She thought he was nothing short of absolutely beautiful. He was so caring and so sweet that she couldn't imagine anybody ever hurting him. She couldn't wrap her mind around how somebody so deserving of love could have been treated so cruelly. _

_"What do you mean by that?" He knit his eyebrows together in confusion, holding her gaze again. _

_"I mean..." She sighed deeply, stroking the side of his face with her hand. He smiled in ecstasy and wished that he could stay frozen in that moment forever. "That anybody who doesn't love you is stupid. I mean that I wish I could spend all my time with you and that if I didn't have you I probably would have gone crazy by now. I mean that I love you, Isaac Lahey. I love you, I love you, I love you." She laughed softly, leaning her head down to kiss his forehead. _

His muscles were starting to numb and he could feel the animal starting to emerge from his body. "Isaac..." Carmen said quietly, walking over to him. He emitted a low whine from his chest and when he looked over to her his blue eyes had turned into pools of liquid gold. Her hands started to shake as she placed them on his face and closed her eyes, hoping that some sort of instinct would tell her what to do. "Isaac, don't..."

She could feel his hands on her back, and her body froze as his claws extended from his fingernails, resting on the surface of her skin. They were waiting to rip. Waiting to shred. Waiting to pierce through her soft flesh. "Get away from me..." He growled harshly, knowing that he'd surely have the power in him to kill her if he lost control. "GO!" He yelled, trying to drive her away. She stayed, gripping her hands against his cheekbones as she lifted his face to look into his eyes. She'd never leave him. Not like this.

"I know it hurts, Isaac. I know it does." She had tears in her eyes as she felt how much agony he was in. The second half of his transformation would happen as soon as the moonlight touched his skin, and she knew that there would only be a matter of moments for her to connect with his human side. She cradled his face in her hands and looked into his golden eyes, giving him something to hold onto. As long as he looked into her eyes, she had him in her control. "Listen to me. Don't give in. You've done it so many times before. Just don't let this be the only time you can't control it. Isaac, don't do it."

His sharp canines started to jut out and he was looking into her eyes with pain written all over his features. "I...can't..." He breathed out, wanting to hold her closer to him but knowing that he couldn't because he'd end up cutting her with his claws. He was a monster. He'd end up killing her if she stayed any longer. "Carmen, go..._please_." He whimpered, feeling his eyes start to water.

_"Don't shift." _The tone her voice had taken on commanded him to bottle up his pain. It sealed him up from the inside. _"Control yourself." _Trying to motivate him to do things himself wasn't going to help her cause. She had to give him commands. That was the only way for it to work. He would have ripped her to shreds if she hadn't pushed him. Any reservation she had about using her ability on him was now dead and gone.

The shining blue of his natural eye color bled into his gold irises and she felt his claws retracting against her back. His breathing was still ragged but it started to slow to a natural pace and his head fell against her shoulder in exhaustion. There was something about him that felt...different. He'd only been able to shift halfway, but it was enough to heal his internal wounds. He hadn't felt this strong or powerful in weeks. He was finally at his best.

"How do you feel?" She asked him uneasily as he began to pace around the room once more, flexing his fingers and balling his fists.

"Good. Really, really good." He smiled widely, rolling his muscular shoulders back and forth. There was a healthy flow of adrenaline kicking through his system and he felt like he could run twenty miles without feeling winded. He was in total control. "And by the way, you smell really, really nice..." He murmured softly, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind. She laughed and gently nudged him away before he could lean his head down to kiss her neck.

"Peter and Stiles are downstairs..." She tried to pry his arms away from her but he whined needily and turned her body around so that she was facing him. "Are you sure this is a good idea right now?"

"I'm pretty sure that it's a good idea...I don't know about now, though. But it's a really good idea." He smiled coyly, lifting her up so that he could place her onto his bed. She trusted him to stay in control if they went any farther, but some part of her was still a little bit scared.

"Oh God!" Stiles interrupted Isaac just as he was about to put his mouth onto Carmen's. "Jesus Christ, keep it in your pants!" He would have told them to get a room, but then he realized that they already had one.

"I'm pretty sure the door was closed for a reason." Isaac sneered, rolling off of her so that he could stand up. Stiles gulped as Isaac's broad figure towered over him, staring at him intensely. "Can I help you?"

"Um, Derek wants to know why you haven't been answering your phone for the past fifteen minutes. Also, I need Carmen." He rattled off quickly, looking over at her to signal that she needed to start moving quickly. Isaac's brow furrowed at the mention of his phone and he suddenly realized that it had probably gotten stuffed into his closet when he was cleaning the room earlier. "Lydia found a body, and she's sort of having a panic attack. You gotta help me calm her down. Also, I'm not leaving you here alone with Peter."

"Good idea." Isaac nodded in approval, digging his phone out of his closet. He had five missed text messages and two missed calls from Derek.

**Derek - **Bank went south. Boyd and Cora loose. Scott and I need help. I'm coming to get you.

**Derek - **Isaac why aren't you answering your phone?

**Derek - **I'll be there in five minutes. Be ready.

**Derek - **This is annoying the hell out of me

**Derek - **NO SEX DURING THE FULL MOON

"Um...who's Cora?" He asked, stuffing his phone into his pocket so that he could find something to wear before Derek came back.

"She's Derek's sister." Peter was standing in the doorway, looking at the three teenagers before him. "I thought...she died in the fire." He admitted quietly, showing a rare sign of vulnerability.

"She and Boyd haven't been exposed to the full moon in months. They're going insane. They'll kill anything that they find." Stiles explained, tapping his foot impatiently while he waited for Carmen to get her things together. "That's why Derek needs your help with them. He and Scott might not be enough to hold them back." He looked up at Isaac, who was wrapping a scarf around his neck.

"Wait, they're _loose_?" Carmen stared at him, completely slack-jawed. "As in like loose and running around Beacon Hills loose?" _  
_

Isaac's phone started to buzz in his pocket and he knew that meant Derek was waiting for him outside. He put his coat on and hugged Carmen tightly before quickly meeting her lips with his. "Stiles, keep her safe." He looked over at him, making sure that the message was loud and clear. "If anything happens to her, I'll—"

"Yeah, yeah. I know the drill. Don't worry, I got it." He nodded, watching as Isaac took one last glance at his girlfriend before he ran past Peter and out of the loft. He rushed Carmen down the stairs once he saw that she had her purse slung over her shoulder and he opened the door for her on the way out. "Just a disclaimer, there's a body."

"I've seen dead bodies before." Her voice was soft and gentle, but the story behind her words wasn't.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Pink Bullets" by the Shins._

**I finally got you guys a quick update! And thanks to everyone who reviewed on the last chapter because I got some really good feedback on things. **


	15. Good Times Gonna Come

**Chapter 14**

_"Goes to show you never really know it's all right, it's all right, it's all right. This is just one of those lonely nights. The good times gonna come."_

"Lydia, Lydia...calm down." Carmen put her hands on her friend's shoulders, trying to get her to look into her eyes. Stiles went over to inspect the body and she could hear him draw in a sharp breath once his eyes came to rest on the bloody figure sitting in the lifeguard's chair. "I know you're freaking out right now, but just do me a favor and look at me."

"I just...I don't even know why I'm here..." She was still frantically moving her eyes around, like she was expecting somebody with a knife to pop out from behind a tree. She finally looked into Carmen's eyes and felt herself being lulled into calmness.

"Definitely looks like a werewolf. Throat ripped out, blood everywhere..." Stiles shook his head, running his hand through his hair as he talked to Scott on the phone. "It's really nasty, man. If those twins from _The Shining_ come out of the woods and ask me if I want to play forever and ever then I can honestly say that I wouldn't be surprised at all." He gesticulated wildly, trying his best to not have his eyes wander back over to the body.

"And Carmen, she's okay right?" Isaac's voice called on the other end of the phone in anticipation for an answer. "Is she like freaked out or anything? If she is you have to just like really lightly kiss the back of her jaw. It calms her down every time, I swear." He hadn't been away from her for twenty minutes and he was already worried out of his mind. Stiles shook his head in exasperation, slapping his forehead. He wasn't going to try Isaac's method. That would be overstepping a couple personal barriers.

"Isaac, shut up!" Derek snapped, elbowing his beta in the gut.

"Could you just make sure that it was another werewolf?" Scott sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. "Like could you get closer?"

"Scott, you're joking. Who the hell else is going around ripping throats out?" He really wanted to avoid looking over at the body again. He was completely positive that it was a werewolf attack. "Carm, give me a second opinion." He gently tugged at her jacket and nudged her closer to the body. She took in a deep breath and swallowed the lump in her throat as she neared the bloody corpse. A single, precise slash lined its throat and blood was still dripping from the wound. Her eyes narrowed as they trailed down the body, coming to rest on a silver purity ring that was reflecting light off the water.

She ripped the phone from Stiles's hands and looked away as quickly as she could. "Scott, it's definitely another werewolf. It's fucking disgusting. I swear to God, if you make me look at it again I'm going to—"

"Okay, Carmen. I get it, I get it...I just...we were just chasing Boyd and Cora here at the preserve, that's all." She knew that the preserve was nowhere near the public pool. "And Isaac's worried. Could you just let him know that you're not dead or something?" He sighed in annoyance, shaking his head.

"I can't believe you made her look at the body!" Isaac's incredulous voice filled her ears, making her laugh softly at how worried he was. "I told Stiles that if anything happened to her—"

"Tell him to stop worrying. I'm fine." She said before handing the phone back to Stiles. "How long until your dad gets here?" She asked him, returning her attention back to Lydia. She put her arm around her friend's shoulders and comfortingly stroked the hair on the back of her head, like her mother had done to her so many times when she was a little kid.

He opened his mouth to reply but he was interrupted by the police sirens that could be heard in the distance. "Lydia, you're gonna have to give a statement. You know that right?"

"No, Stiles." She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Because after finding a dead body I'm sure they're going to let me get into my car and drive back to my house." Leave it to her to fill a void with sarcasm when the moment was dire. He made a face at her and stuck his phone back into his pocket.

When the three teenagers had finished giving their statements to the sheriff's department, Lydia got an escort back to her house but Stiles decided to follow her anyway. "You know she's safe right?" Carmen asked, absentmindedly twirling her hair around her index finger as she stared out the window.

"Hey, you'd do the same if she was Isaac." He sighed, making sure to keep a safe enough distance between himself and the police cruiser. He was right and she knew it. "She found a dead body, Carm. That's gotta rattle something in her."

"Yeah, I know. I just think that maybe you should give her some space. I'm not saying that you should totally leave her alone, but don't get too clingy." He had a habit of coming on too strong, but he couldn't help it. He loved Lydia.

"I'm just worried about her finding the body. She said she didn't even know how she got there. It's like...what happened with Peter. I can't let that happen to her again. I can't." He shook his head, taking his right hand off the wheel to wipe a few tears from his eyes. She nodded slowly and reached over to squeeze his hand as she set it down close to the gear shift. "But, um...how was Isaac tonight?" He changed the subject, turning his palm over so that he could lace his fingers with hers to calm himself down.

"He was already half-shifted when I stopped him." Her voice was quiet. She didn't want to talk about it. "He was begging me to leave, but I couldn't. Seeing him in that much pain...God, Stiles. I felt like somebody was strangling me. I had to do _something_." Now it was his turn to squeeze her hand.

"It wasn't that difficult to hear." He admitted guiltily, remembering how Isaac's yelps and cries of pain could be heard through the entire loft as the full moon rose. Peter pretended to ignore it, but Stiles knew that he was worried. He wasn't worried about Isaac being in pain, though. He was worried about Carmen being alone with him. "But you got it under control. That's the most important part."

"Yeah, control." She scoffed, shaking her head. "It's like he was my goddamn puppet. It made me sick." She wasn't just telling somebody to slap themselves in the face anymore. She stopped a werewolf from transforming.

"Look, you helped him. That's the only thing that matters. Don't blame yourself because you controlled him for a couple minutes. He could have killed you." The last words came out of his mouth softly, sort of like he didn't believe them when he said them. Even in werewolf form, he didn't think Isaac would have it in him to hurt Carmen. Their bond was a lot stronger than people would have seen on the surface. It was so much more complex than that. Something would have stopped him before he could touch her.

"It wouldn't have been his fault." She wouldn't have cared if he'd scratched her up a little bit. Or even a lot. He would have done it because he didn't have another choice. Werewolf Isaac was different from Human Isaac, and she couldn't let that line be blurred. The Isaac who'd had his claws at her back earlier wasn't the Isaac who kissed her and told her that he loved her before she fell asleep with her head on his chest.

They pulled up to Lydia's house and Stiles turned the car off, putting his forehead up against the steering wheel. He blew out a breath of hot air out of his lips and she laughed softly, rubbing her hand on the back of his neck to soothe him. "That's feels nice." He mumbled, laughing at the same time she did.

"I do it to Isaac when he gets upset." She didn't want to tell Stiles how many times it had happened, but he could tell that it was a lot. "I can wait here while you go in and talk to her." She nudged him gently and he nodded before he got out of the car. She didn't know how long he'd be in her house, but she made the conscious decision to not care. His business was his business and she had no say. Her phone started to buzz and when she looked at the caller ID and her lips curled up into a smile when she saw Isaac's name on the screen. "Hello?"

"Hey, I just got a few minutes to talk. We've got Boyd and Cora inside the school and Derek and Scott have them in the boiler room." He sounded relieved and she was happy that he wasn't worrying. For once. "How are things on your end?"

"Good, I guess." She sighed, shifting positions in her seat. "I'm sitting in the Jeep because Stiles is going into Lydia's to make sure that she's okay."

"Is he bringing you home after that?" Her voice was enough to make all the stress leave his system, even if it was only momentarily.

"I think so, yeah." She pushed her seat back and propped her feet up on the dashboard. When she closed her eyes to rest for a little bit she could only hear the same sentence in her head, repeating itself over and over again like a broken record.

_"I'm sure Isaac wouldn't mind."_

"We probably won't be done here until the sun comes up, but I'll come and see you. I mean like, you don't have to stay awake for me or anything though. I don't want to make you do that. I'll just come up and make sure that you're okay." She knew he'd be exhausted and he knew he'd be exhausted but the prospect of being with her just excited him so much. It made her feel guilty as hell. "And now that we've got Boyd back and I'm healed I can go back to school. I know you've been bugging me about it, but I should be back soon, and I—"

"I told a new guy that I'd hang out with him and his brother." She blurted out, making him clamp his mouth shut with a squeak. "It's not a big deal, I promise. I just felt bad because he's new and I didn't want to shoot him down. And it's only once, really. I only have to hang out with him once and that's it." She rattled off quickly, curling and uncurling her fists as she spoke into her cell phone.

"Oh." The disappointment in that single syllable was enough to make her heart crack. She knew how protective he was of her. She knew how jealous he got sometimes. She swallowed the lump in her throat and chewed down on her lip before waiting for him to even formulate a response.

"Or I won't do it at all. I won't do it." She bit the bullet, sighing deeply. Making him sad broke her heart. Agreeing to hang out with Aiden in the first place had been selfish on her part, especially after she knew that Lydia was interested in him. Especially when Scott and Stiles had told her not to. And especially when she knew that it would upset Isaac if he found out. "Please say something." He had been quiet for almost an entire minute but she could still hear him breathing on the other end of the line.

"Thank you." He didn't know how else he was supposed to respond. Some parts of him, or rather, most parts of him weren't used to being first choice. It was a feeling he hadn't gotten used to yet. "I gotta go now, but I'll come see you later on. I promise." He ended the call and she laughed quietly to herself, suddenly feeling a huge weight be lifted off her chest.

She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes for a few minutes before Stiles came running back into the car in a panic. She still had her eyes closed but he could tell she was awake. "Scott's mom wants us at the hospital like ASAP. She says we have to see something." He quickly pulled out of Lydia's driveway and noticed that Carmen was pretending to stay asleep to ignore him. "Get your feet of my goddamn dashboard! Were you raised by a pack of wild animals!?" He snapped, making her shoot up.

"You put your feet on my dashboard all the time! You're such a hypocrite!" She retorted, making him groan and roll his eyes. She was right, but he'd never admit it.

"Different story for another day. Right now, we have very important very adult things to do. Like things with dead bodies." The streets were empty so he had no problem speeding down the road, not even once faltering in his concentration on the road. She, on the other hand, was gripping for dear life onto whatever she could find. Their night was far from over.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Good Times Gonna Come" by Aqualung._

**Another quick update haha! So Carmen told Isaac that she'd stay away from Aiden, but that doesn't mean Aiden's gonna stay away from her...mwahahaha! I'd be doing everybody (including myself) an injustice if I didn't give you guys a little bit of jealous Isaac. **

**Also I'm pretty impressed with myself for getting these out so quickly. I have no idea what my update schedule is gonna be like once school starts back up again, so you'll have to bear with me. But luckily that's not until the 28th. Psyched for the new episode tonight!**


	16. The Devil's Tears

**Chapter 15**

_"Some call love a word, some call love a thief...but she's my home. And she's as much apart for this broken heart, but see broken bones always seem to mend. I'll taste the devil's tears, drink from his soul but I'll never give up you."_

"I'll see you later." Isaac could hear the sound of Carmen's voice outside as she got out of the Jeep and walked up the stairs to her front door. She didn't sound tired like he had expected her to be after such a long day. She sounded like she was..._scared._ "Troy?" She called out her brother's name as she walked through the door, expecting to see him sitting at the kitchen table with annoyed look on his face. It was almost 5am and he always got up early to make breakfast on the days he was on-call in the mornings.

She found a note on the kitchen counter and rolled her eyes when she read through it.

_I don't know when/if you're coming home but right now it's a little past 4:15. I'm at the hospital. They were shorthanded so they needed me to come in. There are bodies. Tell me what you know._

_PS: Somebody's been walking around your room for the past half hour. I think it's Isaac. Kid's starting to creep me out._

_-Troy_

She folded the note and put it into her pocket with a frustrated sigh, knowing that her world was starting to spill into his and it was out of her control. And now that she knew about the sacrifices, she knew that everybody around her was in danger. Nobody would be safe. "Isaac?" She called his name quietly as she walked up the stairs, smiling faintly when she saw him leaning up against her doorframe. His eyes were drowsy but he was awake enough to stand on his feet. His eyes smiled but his lips barely curled up. She assumed the obvious—he must have been ridiculously tired. She twirled around in a circle for him, showing that she had no cuts or bruises to report. "I'm clean."

"Something's wrong." He stated plainly, noticing the shift in her body's behavior. She was breathing like it was a chore and she had a look of sadness in her eyes that made his chest feel heavy. Her heart was thumping away at a normal rate but the way she was playing with her fingers would suggest that she was high-strung. "Tell me." He pressed on for an answer, reaching down to hold her hand in his. Her fingers were cold. She was shaking.

"They're sacrifices." Her voice escalated in pitch and her lips started to tremble. Her bright blue eyes turned into huge glass marbles. "Those killings...they weren't just some werewolf running around for fun, Isaac. More people are going to die. More _innocent _people are going to die." His mind turned numb.

The only thing his body could process was what was right in front of him, and that was how upset she was. How much pain she was in. How the tears fell from her eyes onto her face. His actions were almost unconscious in a way. Hold her. Kiss her forehead. Wipe away her tears. Tell her that everything would be okay. He did what his instincts told him to do, but somehow he felt like it still wasn't enough. "Shhh, shhh...it's okay, it's okay. I'm here, I'm here...shhhh..." He cradled the back of her head in his palm, resting the side of his chin on her forehead as he felt her crying into his neck. "I won't let anything happen to you." As if she would have ever thought otherwise.

She gripped onto his shirt tighter, burying her face into the crook of his neck. Eventually the steady rise and fall of his chest was able to calm her down and she looked up into his eyes. He raised his hand to her face and wiped away the few tears that were dripping down her cheek. "Stiles said that there was a pattern to it." She said quietly, taking in a deep breath to gather herself. She walked into her room and took her jacket off, setting it down on her desk chair. "These are only the first three. He said that they were..." She looked at him pensively, tightening her lips together.

"That they were what?" He was still only standing a few inches behind her, like he was afraid she'd fall over or something.

"You'll think it's stupid." She mumbled, rubbing her eyes.

"I'm a werewolf dating a girl who has superhuman abilities to control people's emotions. Yeah, I'm totally gonna think it's stupid." She glared at him and he raised his hands in surrender. Sarcasm probably wasn't the best mechanism to go to right now. "I promise I won't think it's stupid."

"He said they were all virgins." She looked up at him and his face didn't show that he thought it was stupid, but he looked amused. "What now?"

"Don't quote me, but I'm one-hundred percent sure that you're not a virgin. I was there, I remember it." She slapped her forehead. Sometimes he could annoy the hell out of her with his sass. He really had to work on his comedic timing. "Like, really, _really _clearly." He laughed smugly, feeling his body go through a surge of heat when his mind flashed back to that night.

"Stiles and I looked it up, okay? It's called the Threefold Death. Virgins are one possibility. There could be a million other ways for this to go." He coughed on his laughter and clamped his mouth shut, turning serious again. "Everybody's in danger, Isaac. There's so much that we don't know about this."

"Does Scott have a plan?" He shuffled his feet on the hardwood floor, glancing from her eyes to her shaking hands every few seconds. Even if he held them they wouldn't stop shaking.

"Scott always has a plan." She said it like it was completely obvious. He was thankful that there was one consistent thing in this world.

"Do you know what it is?"

"Not at all."

He nodded thoughtfully, poking his tongue into his cheek. "You should get some sleep." He put his hand on the small of her back, trying to guide her over to her bed. "You'll feel a lot better."

"I couldn't sleep even if I wanted to." She had been up for almost 24 hours now and even though she was exhausted she couldn't bring herself to close her eyes. Her thoughts were racing out of control. She thought that sleep would have been a complete waste of time.

"At least get changed or something." He insisted, making her roll her eyes at him. "And don't roll your eyes at me." He wagged his finger at her, staring her down until she finally walked over to her dresser and got out a long t-shirt. She walked into the bathroom to change and he took the opportunity to take his shoes off before he laid down on her bed. Now it had become a habit for him. He wouldn't even sit on her bed if he had his shoes on.

_"If your back hurts then you can just lie down on my bed, if you want." She offered him, not being able to see him in that much pain. His eyebrows shot up, but she got up from the bed and picked up his jacket with her. He stood up and was about to lie down when she opened her mouth. "But you have to take your shoes off first."_

"I thought I lost that shirt." He laughed when he saw her walk out of the bathroom dressed in one of his long-sleeved henleys. She tugged the sleeves down over her hands and bit down on her lip, shaking her head guiltily. Wearing his clothes always gave her a sense of comfort.

"Are you staying?" She asked him quietly as she laid down on her mattress next to him. She didn't want him to leave. Everything was better when he was with her. "But you don't have to if Derek wants you back."

"Derek's got his hands full right now." He bent his arm at the elbow and propped his head up with his fist, leaning over her. "And I've got more important things to do." He wanted to make sure that she slept, and even after she closed her eyes he wanted to stay and make sure that she was peaceful. He knew more than anybody what it was like to wake up from a nightmare and not have anybody there to calm you down. He didn't want her to be afraid to sleep.

"It's like 5:30 in the morning. I shouldn't be sleeping now." Her eyes were already hooded over and he laughed at how futilely she was trying to resist the urge to fall asleep. He got up from the bed to close the blinds on the windows and the curtains of her balcony door, hiding the room from the bright light of the rising sun. "Oh, that'll definitely fool me." She mumbled tiredly when he smiled at her with a cheeky grin on his face.

"Sleep." He laid back down on his side and pushed back the stray locks of hair that were obscuring her face. She pressed her face into his warm chest and inhaled deeply, filling her nose with his scent. He noticed that she was tugging on his shirt and curling herself up against his chest, something that she'd never done before. She was scared. He didn't know of what, exactly. But it was enough to worry him.

If those killings were actually calculated sacrifices and not random killings then he just had more things to cloud up his thoughts. More things that could take her away from him. More things that he was afraid he couldn't protect her from by himself.

_"Peter told me that Carmen stopped your shift." Derek said to his beta, crossing his muscular forearms over his chest. Isaac nodded slowly, not knowing what relevance that held at the current moment. They had just brought Cora and Boyd back to the loft, and Scott had gone back home already. "And he told me that you almost killed her too."_

_Isaac's jaw tightened. "I didn't touch her." And he wasn't lying to himself either. He just wasn't admitting the full truth. He knew that he could have killed her, but she stopped him before he could fully transform. "Why does this even matter?"_

_Derek took a deep breath in and rolled his shoulders back, still debating whether or not he should have actually been saying anything. "It matters because now it means that she's valuable." He remembered the first time Scott and Stiles had told him about Carmen that he'd known the extent of her abilities but he thought it was just an urban legend. A fairytale. A myth. "And if she's valuable it means that they want her."_

_"But they're an Alpha Pack. Of werewolves. And Alphas. Meaning not her." It had to have been a joke. A cruel, cruel joke._

_"Key word _alpha_, you idiot." Derek rolled his eyes. He knew he shouldn't have opened his mouth in the first place. Isaac was about to have an aneurysm. "Sometimes the more powerful packs...they take alpha humans like her along with their emissaries. The emissaries help to mediate among other packs, but the alpha humans help mediate among the other humans. They use it for camouflage. To blend in so they can strike easier."_

_His throat went dry. He felt sweat starting to drip down the middle of his back. He had just gotten her back after so long. After waiting and waiting for so long. He couldn't have her leave again. He couldn't let somebody take her away from him._

_"And now that she can control the shift it makes her more powerful. Somebody with her ability is at the top of the alpha human class. And Deucalion only wants the best for his pack." The more Derek spoke the angrier Isaac got. His mind was fogging up. He couldn't think straight. "At first they'll try to tempt her into the pack, but after a while or if she refuses then things will get more violent."_

_"Then what the hell are you going to do about it!?" He was completely livid. Derek didn't seem like he was going to do anything. It just sounded like he was only telling him what was going on. Like...it was something that he couldn't stop. Isaac grabbed his coat and put it on as he walked towards the loft door. _

_"Where do you think you're going?" His alpha asked him incredulously, looking from his beta and then over to Peter so he could get some help. He was given none._

_"I told her that I'd go and check on her when we were done. And we're done here." He grit his teeth, trying to hold all of his anger in. "You've known this whole time, haven't you?" He turned to look at Peter, who was sitting on the spiral staircase. He had sheer bitterness embroiled in his eyes as he looked at Derek's uncle. "It's your fault." He swallowed the hard lump in his throat and tried to blink his tears away. _

_Peter didn't say anything. He took in a deep breath and looked down. Isaac could hear his heartbeat start to accelerate. Guilt._

_"You told her to go away this summer. You told her to train. You told her to get stronger. And you knew that they'd come for her." He knew that it wasn't worth it for him to get into a fight now. There were more important things that he had to handle. He'd tell Scott. He loved Carmen like she was his own sister. They'd work out a plan. They'd keep her safe. "This is what you wanted the whole time. To groom her like a fucking show dog and sell her away to the highest bidder." He spat, tightening his fists in a futile attempt to relieve his fury._

_"It's not like that. I didn't know they would—"_

_"BULLSHIT!" He screamed, his voice cracking on his own sobs. Peter looked taken aback, like he didn't know Isaac was capable of getting that angry. "If she dies then it'll be on your hands. Burn in hell." His voice was quieter, but it still held the same rage. He yanked the loft door open and slammed it shut._

After shifting her legs around for a little bit, he could finally feel her falling asleep. Her hands were tightly gripped on the fabric of his shirt around his neckline and he could feel her face pressed up against the area of bare skin that his shirt left exposed on his chest and collarbone. He held the back of her head in his large palm and stroked her hair lovingly, shutting his eyes tightly.

He'd tell her about Deucalion's intentions eventually, but right now he wanted her to sleep. He wanted her to be calm. He wanted her to be safe. "I won't let anything happen to you." He repeated his words from earlier, holding her closer to him.

He prayed that he wouldn't be made into a liar.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "The Devil's Tears" by Angus and Julia Stone. _

**OH MY GOD SO LAST NIGHT'S EPISODE. I WAS SCREAMING AT MY TV THE ENTIRE TIME. It was so good omfg it was so well done. (Well, except for the "emotional connection" Allisaac parts. Ugh. Don't even get me started on that. Their connection basically appeared out of thin air. AND ALLISON TRIED TO KILL HIM.) But whatever. Bleeeghhhh. **

**Anyways, I started thinking about how I was going to write the ice bath scene when I came to it and I already have an idea on how it'll go down, which is good. Also, when I was writing this chapter I was sorta debating whether or not to put the scene at Derek's loft in the beginning, partly because that's A LOT of italics to read haha. But then I decided that it was best where it was because then you can go back and understand Isaac's actions more which I thought was cool. **


	17. Do I Wanna Know?

**Chapter 16**

_"Are there some aces up your sleeve? Have you no idea that you're in deep? I've dreamt about you nearly every night this week. How many secrets can you keep?"_

"Yeah, that's Isaac Lahey. He seriously scares the shit outta me."

"Oh my God, look at his shoulders. He's gorgeous."

"I wouldn't want to get into a fight with him, no way. You couldn't pay me enough money."

"I heard he killed his dad."

"Yeah, I know. But he's hot. Like, _really _hot. And besides, he wasn't convicted of anything anyways."

"Are you kidding? Of course I'd tap his girlfriend, but I wouldn't do it! He'd fuckin' rip my head off!"

"His girlfriend's in psych with me. She seems normal. And she's popular too. She hangs out with Scott McCall and Lydia Martin. If he was a murderer I don't think she'd be dating him."

"Eh, I'd date him if he was a murderer. Well, unless he was into weird sex stuff. Okay I'd probably still date him. He's really hot."

Isaac had to restrain himself from laughing as he walked through the halls of the high school. He used to be a loser. He used to be a complete nobody who basically blended into the walls. Now people knew who he was. They were _scared _of him. There were girls who wanted him. There were guys who wanted to be him.

It felt good to be back.

"You look cute today." A voice said thoughtfully, catching Carmen by surprise so much that she dropped the books she was holding. He stuck his hand out to catch them before they hit the floor and he held them out to her with a half-smile.

"Oh...thanks, Aiden." She gave him a small smile and took her books from his hands. He purposely made it so that their fingers would have to brush together. "I'm sorry that we can't hang out." She hadn't talked to him since she'd turned him down, but she'd just told him that she had an extremely jealous boyfriend. She hadn't told him about all of her friends basically drawing Satanic pentagrams and quarantine signs on his and his brother's faces for a reason unbeknownst to her.

"You know, if I were your boyfriend I'd let you hang out with other guys." He shrugged, rolling his eyes. It sounded a lot less hypothetical than she wanted it to be. "I can hold those for you." He already started to take her books from her hands, and she didn't feel like yanking them away. She got the feeling that he was a lot stronger than he let on.

"He's just really protective, that's all. He's looking out for me." She felt uncomfortable with how close he was to her. And she could feel the stare of his eyes nearly burning into her face. Normally most guys would leave her alone, and that would be _before_ they found out that Isaac was her boyfriend. "But anyways, your brother and Danny? They're cute." She changed the subject quickly.

"Yeah, Danny's a nice guy. Ethan likes him." He said passively, still wanting to pursue a line of conversation that concerned his hypothetical relationship with Carmen. "And I like _you_. How about I take you for a ride on my bike sometime?" He raised a coy eyebrow, pivoting her around so that he had her up against a wall right as the first period bell rang.

"Aiden, you know I can't. And I think it's really sweet that you like me, but I have a boyfriend. You know that." She laughed incredulously, trying to squirm away. His mouth was so close to her face she could feel his warm breath on her skin. He would have been doing her a huge favor if he hadn't smelled as nice as he did. "I told you, I can't hang out with you." Her voice was a little more aggressive this time, making him raise an eyebrow in interest. Normally just her tone would have been able to make anybody back off of her. She just passed it off as a loss of concentration.

"Then I'll just keep trying until you can." He pushed her books into her chest with a wink and a smirk before turning on his heels to walk back down the hallway. She found herself secretly wishing that Isaac would be around the corner, waiting to break his nose. But he'd told her that he'd be back to school in a couple days, so that would be a no-go.

Carmen cleared her throat and rolled her shoulders back so that she could compose herself before she had to walk into class. She adjusted the black skater skirt she was wearing and fixed the neckline of her gray crop top, trying to hide the fact that the skin by her collarbone was so flushed. There were so many things familiar about what had just happened to her. Everything but the guy doing it was almost exactly the same.

_Isaac leaned over her and she backed up against the lockers, forcing herself to look at something other than his eyes. It would have been a lot easier if the rest of his face wasn't so nice to look at. "Has anyone ever told you that you come on just a little too strong?" She mumbled, seeing him flex the fingers in the hand he hung by his side. He leaned his head down and inhaled her scent, breathing out onto her neck so that she could feel it trickle on her skin. She squirmed uncomfortably but the grin on his face just grew._

_"Am I making you uncomfortable again?" He pouted innocently, moving his hand up the inner side of her arm. She nodded vehemently, making him chuckle softly. "You're really cute when you lie to me." He was completely unfazed by how she was acting. Again her skin was flushing underneath his touch and he felt the hairs on her arm stand up._

_"I'm not lying." She growled at him, making him laugh even more._

Later she had realized that Isaac was only doing it to show off how cocky the bite had made him. He was doing it because he was under the impression that most girls were into a hot guy in a leather jacket being unnecessarily flirtatious and aggressive. He was doing it because he didn't know another way to get her to be with him.

The way Aiden approached it...it was almost _malicious_.

* * *

"We match." Carmen almost dropped her books again when she heard a familiar voice behind her. _Almost. _She'd learned from earlier that day.

"You liar!" She laughed, jumping up onto Isaac so that he could hug her. "You told me you weren't coming back for a couple more days!" He was a little caught off-guard by her outward display of affection, but he wasn't going to complain.

"Surprise?" He shrugged, setting her feet back onto the floor. She looked him up and down, noticing that he was right when he said that they matched. His gray and black striped cardigan went along almost perfectly with her black skirt and gray crop top. "I would have seen you earlier, but I was sitting in the office all first period. They wanted to make sure that I understood the concept of school." He rolled his eyes. She wasn't all that shocked. He was basically like Scott was last year. Missing classes, not paying attention, or just not coming to school all together.

"They're probably going to be the only ones who give you a hard time about it." She let him take her books from her and he wrapped his other arm around her waist, pulling her into his warm body. Most of the school thought that he had either been killing more people, hiding evidence from his father's murder, or spending time in jail. _Most of the school._ There were still a few far-fetched rumors that managed to get around. A freshman girl in her study hall said that she heard he'd been doing pornos in the San Fernando Valley.

"More than half the new freshmen think I killed my father." He scoffed in disbelief, making sure that he sent a glare in the direction of any guys who let their gaze linger on his girlfriend for a little too long. Cocky Isaac had come to play today. She didn't mind, either.

"People like to talk." She found herself looking around every corner to see if Aiden would be there. She didn't find him mysterious anymore. She found him threatening. "Remember that guy I told you about? The one who asked me to hang out?" It wasn't a good sign when she felt his arm tighten around her waist.

"Is he bothering you?" The tone of his voice had morphed from smug to protective in a few seconds. "Because I seriously have no problem beating him up. I just got back to school so I won't really care if they kick me out."

_"No."_ The way she said it was so forceful that he was almost taken aback. Of course she wanted Aiden to leave her alone. Of course she really would have liked to watch Isaac beat him up. But she definitely didn't want him to get in trouble for it, especially after she had pestered him so much about coming back to school. "I'll take care of it myself." As in, _If he ever comes near me again, I'll end up making him strip naked and cluck like a chicken in front of the entire school._

"Are you sure?" He stopped walking. She put her hand on his back and nudged him forward, signaling that she was definitely sure. If Aiden got to be too much for her to handle then she'd get Scott to take care of it. His methods were a lot less...barbaric. Plus she wanted to keep Isaac out of trouble for as long as humanly possible, which was a challenge. He went looking for ways to be aggressive.

"I'll just turn him onto Lydia, honestly. I know that likes him and we have the same hair color. I'm sure they'll work something out." She could tell that he was still thinking about it. "Isaac, come off it. You know I can handle things." Her ways of dealing with threats were a lot less violent. She was almost poisonous in a way, infecting your mind until you couldn't think for yourself anymore. She may not have been as physical as he would have liked, but it didn't make her any less lethal. She'd get the job done if it needed to be done.

He knew that her being able to handle things was exactly what drew Deucalion to her. Why he wanted her in his pack. If she kept using her ability it would only make her stronger and that was the opposite of what Isaac wanted. He knew it was selfish, but he knew that it was justified too. He wanted her safe, and the only way to do that was to make her weaker. He just didn't know how to make it happen, or if it actually _could_ happen. "Just stay away from him, okay?" The way he said it sounded forced, like he was just telling her as a precaution. He already had a solution cooking up in his head.

"And please don't go planning anything behind my back." He suddenly wondered whether or not she could read minds now too. "You're not the only one who keeps telling me to stay away from him. Scott and Stiles have been on my case. I told you that _I've got it under control_." She growled, making him raise his hands in surrender. She found it funny that out of all four of them, she was the only one who had ever actually talked to Aiden before. His brother Ethan seemed like a nice enough guy, and she trusted Danny's judgement.

He leaned down and kissed her temple, giving her an innocent pout. "I can't believe you thought I had a single doubt in my mind." She rolled her eyes and elbowed him in the gut, making him laugh. He pulled her back into his body and leaned his head on top of hers, smiling contently. "You smell really good..." He mumbled, closing his eyes. His hand slid down from her waist to rest on her butt and she froze.

"What are you doing?" He didn't know why she'd asked that. She clearly knew what he was up to.

"Looking for your pockets." He remarked sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

"I'm wearing a skirt." Her face was completely straight and her voice was dead-pan. His mouth formed a small _oh _and he nodded slowly, moving his hand back up to her waist. She wasn't going to be buying into what he was selling anytime soon. "That werewolfy thing that you do where smelling me turns you on really needs to stop. It's ridiculously inconvenient." It wasn't like he could help it. It would have been even worse if she didn't put perfume on. Her natural scent only intoxicated him more.

"I don't see anything inconvenient about it." He shrugged innocently, sticking out his bottom lip. "The school has bathrooms." She cocked an eyebrow at him and he mirrored her expression for comedic effect, albeit with a little more suggestiveness.

"You're going to make me late for cross-country." It had been a while since she'd gone running, but she did it a lot before transferring to Beacon Hills. It was something that took her stress away and she was good at it too. "And it has to be the bathroom in the gym." She sighed deeply, trying her best to pretend that she was mad at him. He knew as well as anybody that she hated being late for anything.

He couldn't help but start to feel giddy. She offered it more as a back-to-school gift. Her standards were a lot higher than a school bathroom, and he was completely aware of that. "Finstock's gonna chew me out for being late too, okay? We can call it even." He grinned wickedly.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Do I Wanna Know?" by The Arctic Monkeys._

**I've been thinking about writing this episode for a reeeeaaaaallly long time especially because it's really important in the scheme of Isaac's character. I think this episode and Motel California are going to be really fun to interpret and hopefully I'll be able to stretch things out (so that there's actual developmental/progressive stuff going on and now slow and painful nothingness) so that I end up having enough material to work with when the show comes back in the beginning of January. That's FIVE MONTHS away so I might have to take little breaks, especially around midterms which (for me) usually come before Christmas break and also around when I have to take the SATs.**

**But for now I think I'll keep going on my regular update schedule since school doesn't start up again for like 13 days or something like that.**


	18. Bad Mood

**Chapter 17**

_"Better to be ready if you rattle my cage. Oh, I should loosen up some, baby I know. But I get angrier with age. Better to be ready if you rattle my cage."_

"Lahey! Being late on your first day back isn't a good way to start off with me this year!" Isaac cringed as he entered the locker room to hear Coach Finstock's booming voice in his direction. He knew that he had it coming.

"Sorry, Coach." He mumbled, making an attempt at looking disappointed in his actions. He just couldn't keep the smug smile off his face for long enough. His thick hair was slightly mussed, like somebody had just run their fingers through it or pulled on it. The front of his white t-shirt was half-tucked into his pants, sort of like he'd pulled his pants on in a hurry. The end of his belt was hanging out of his belt loop, and the skin on his cheeks and collarbone was completely flushed. Not like he was embarrassed, but like he had a fever.

"Isaac looks like he had to run all the way over here." Scott said casually, making Stiles throw him one of his "are you joking?" faces. Eyes squinted, mouth slightly agape, head turned at an angle—the whole nine yards. "What?" He put his leg up on a bench and began to tie his running shoes.

"Wait, you're serious?" Stiles had to wait a few seconds to make sure that was actually the case. To him it seemed plainly obvious. "You really think Isaac had to run all the way over here?" He really should have just left it alone and let his friend draw his own conclusions, but his mind was so much on the topic of sexual things that he couldn't help himself.

"Um...yeah..." Scott thought _his _explanation was the one that was plainly obvious. He had no idea what his best friend was getting at. "He probably went to the bathroom and found out he was late so he had to run over here." He shrugged plainly, tying his other shoe. Okay, fair enough. He was half-right.

"Oh my God, no." Stiles slapped his forehead, shaking his head in total disappointment. "Isaac was _in _the bathroom. I guarantee you that Carmen probably just finished giving him a blowjob." He rolled his eyes. While his virginity could actually turn him into a sacrifice, his best friend was busy giving her boyfriend blowjobs in the school bathroom. A couple of heads turned at the mention of the words _Carmen _and _blowjob_ and they looked at Isaac, who kept an arrogant grin on his face the entire time as he took off his shirt. He turned to face his locker so that people wouldn't be able to see the spotty red and blue bruises all over his chest that were just starting to fade away, along with a couple more scratches and purple marks on his hip flexors, leading down to his groin. Somebody had _really _wanted to get his pants off.

"First off, that's disgusting. And how do you even know that?" Scott asked him. Isaac slipped his pants off with a deep breath and discreetly adjusted the elastic of his boxers because he had been in such a hurry to pull them back up that they were completely uneven. He snuck a peak at his crotch and sighed gratefully as he saw the bite marks along his pelvis quickly healing. She'd probably done it as payback for all the times he'd marked her up like she was a wall waiting to be graffitied.

"BECAUSE CARMEN TELLS ME EVERYTHING!" Stiles shook his friend's shoulders, again making people in the locker room turn their heads. Some of them were still shocked that the two of them were such close friends. The rest of the locker room slowly began to file out and Stiles gulped as he felt a strong hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah, and I'm sure she'll be real interested to know that you tell everyone else everything." Isaac pat his shoulder with an annoyed look on his face as he followed the rest of the cross country team out the door. He jogged out onto the track along with the rest of the group and he got down on one knee to re-tie his shoes. He hadn't been paying attention when he first tied them so they had easily come undone. He made sure to double-knot them this time.

"Hey, I didn't know you were on the cross-country team." He couldn't identify the voice, but there was a distinct hint of arrogance to it. Like he was trying to impress the person he was talking to. "I'd love to go running with you sometime. See if you can beat me."

"You seem like you'd be a good runner. I'm probably not as good as you are." Immediately his ears perked up. Carmen.

"Well your legs would definitely suggest otherwise."

Isaac growled, barring his teeth. He felt a possessive instinct surge through him and he was about to get to his feet when a familiar scent reached his nose. Smells were the mind's most powerful triggers and they made his mind flash back to a time he thought he'd been too dazed to remember. He looked from his left to his right and his line of sight followed each Alpha Twin as they flanked him, staring back into his blue eyes. He felt his blood begin to simmer underneath the surface of his skin as his body slowly but steadily filled with an unbridled rage.

The Alpha Pack that had tried to kill him. The Alpha Pack that was a threat to the people around him, the people he cared about. The Alpha Pack that was bent on taking the girl he loved away from him. Everything suddenly clicked in his head as Finstock blew his whistle, sending everybody forward. That was the guy who'd been bothering Carmen so much. The one who she told him she'd be able to take care of. It sent his stomach into knots and he tightened his fists as he thrust his body upward, ready to take off after them.

"Isaac!" Scott's voice was enough to break him out of his chaotic thoughts for just a moment, but only that.

"It's them!" He snarled, breaking away from Scott's strong grip as he propelled his body forward, his only thought to go after the twins and make them pay. He'd rip them to shreds for what they did to him. He'd rip them to shreds for trying to even _look _at Carmen. Deucalion would never take her. He'd make sure of it. The Isaac Lahey from before the bite would have cowered in a corner and waited for the first punch to be thrown. The Isaac Lahey from now couldn't even hold the wolf inside of him. He was ready to make a kill and he wanted it as painful and as violent as possible.

"Isaac?" Carmen's voice was quiet as she watched her boyfriend rush past her and after the twins who were at least 15 feet in front of her. She didn't even know that he could run that fast. She passed it off as just him being competitive when she noticed Scott rush by her too. He wasn't doing it to race the other three, either. He was going after Isaac. And she knew that he was going to stop him from doing something completely stupid and impulsive in every way possible.

She'd told him to stay away from Aiden and that she had it under control. Her mind only momentarily passed it off as him being his usual, over-protective and wildly jealous self. In the back of her mind she probably expected him to go against her wishes. Then her train of thought stopped. He was going after _both _of them. And it didn't look like he was going to just beat them up.

_"Derek says there's a whole pack of them, you know. Of Alphas."_

_"Alphas attacked him."_

_"THEY SEE ME! THEY SEE ME!"_

There was absolutely no way. There couldn't be. It was impossible.

_"No," She shook her head, biting down on her lip. "My boyfriend isn't in school right now, but I'm sure you'll see him around once he comes back. Isaac Lahey." She slowly looked up at Aiden as the words rolled off her tongue and she could see something in his face change. It was tiny; something that could be easily mistaken for another emotion. But she was trained enough to notice what it was._

_Aggression. _

_"Carmen, stay away from him."_

_"That's it. I'm compromising, Carmen. Just don't get close to them. We don't know anything about them and they could be really dangerous."_

_Normally just her tone would have been able to make anybody back off of her. She just passed it off as a loss of concentration._

Everything fell into place in her mind as she felt the speed begin to pour into her legs so that she could catch Isaac and Scott before it was too late. Aiden and Ethan had to have been Alphas. They were Alphas who were part of Deucalion's pack, and they were the Alphas who had tried to kill Isaac. They'd try to do it again too.

"Damn, when Deucalion told me he wanted me to get to her he never said she had a body like that." Aiden laughed smugly, tightening the grip her had on Isaac's arm as he struggled to get free. "Then she just made it even better and told me her boyfriend was you! I mean, what are the chances? I didn't think this was going to be so much fun but that's definitely changed." He grinned wildly, making Isaac's face morph into sheer rage. They could see the fire behind his eyes and it was easy to sense the murderous intent he had rising to the surface. Just the thought of her being with somebody else...somebody who _could_ and _most definitely would_ put her in danger...it was enough to make him feel like throwing up.

"Stay the fuck away from her!" He yelled, fighting against both of the twins to get to his feet. "I swear to God, I'll slash both of your throats open!" The veins in his neck were starting to stick out and the more he thought about it the more the desire seared through his body. He wanted them to suffer in the worst way possible so they'd know what they did to him. What they were _doing _to him. He had lived under fear and threats for so long that he was refusing to let them get to him now. He had the power to protect the people he loved and he was going to exercise full use of it.

"Is that...is that desperation I hear, Ethan?" The content look on Aiden's face refused to be washed away. He pouted innocently and bat his eyelashes as Isaac, shaking his head. "We'll take real good care of her, don't you worry. I know I definitely will. Think of it, Isaac. She'll have a big, strong Alpha to take care of her. None of this pathetic Beta bullshit that you have going on. She'll forget you ever existed once she's had me."

Scott's fist collided with Ethan's jaw, breaking the vice grip he had on Isaac's arm. It was enough to make Aiden loosen his hand and Isaac wasted no time in kicking his ribs so hard he felt the bones began to crack. "DON'T, FUCKING, TOUCH, HER!" He screamed in absolute fury as he kicked over and over again, waiting for the grin to dissolve off Aiden's features. It never did. "If I so much as even _smell_ you on her, I will not hesitate to kill you. And you can tell Deucalion to get somebody else, because she—is—mine." He growled aggressively, his breaths growing increasingly ragged. There were washes of adrenaline flowing through his blood stream and he knelt down next to Aiden's body and he recoiled his fist, ready to land a blow right across his face.

Scott ripped him away just as soon as Ethan got to his feet, straightening his jaw. He let out a howl and his eyes turned from brown to bright red as he opened his mouth to reveal his fangs. Aiden held his hand to his side and pushed on his ribs, already feeling them start to heal. Isaac's eyes glowed the color of liquid gold and he was more than ready to fight. He couldn't wait until he had Aiden's flesh under his claws, feeling it rip and bleed until only bone was left. There was an animal inside of him and it was begging to be let out.

Then there was a scream. His body froze, like he had become paralyzed.

She'd looked everywhere for them. She couldn't help it if her eyes wandered. She hadn't meant to come across the body but it would have been difficult to ignore. Carmen walked closer to the corpse that she saw tied to the three, knowing that there was no way for it to be a coincidence. Just as she was getting near enough to smell the blood, she felt a warm hand pulling on her wrist. "It's the same as the others, isn't it?" She tightened her jaw, backing up.

"Yeah, looks like it." Stiles croaked, pulling her backwards with him. Blood dripped from the garrote around his neck and he couldn't help it if he wanted to get a closer look to see if the throat was really slashed. He was praying that it wasn't, but he knew it would have been impossible for it to not have been. He put his arm around her shoulders and rubbed his hand up and down her arm, not knowing another way he could have made things better.

"What's wrong? Are you okay? I heard you screaming, I didn't know if something had happened, oh my God, are you okay?" Isaac's frantic voice was followed by the sound of his feet sliding down the leaves on the hill. He rushed over to Carmen and pulled her away from Stiles, holding her head close to his shoulder. "You're safe, right? Are you hurt? Is anything wrong?" He held her face in his hands and tried to see if she had any cuts on her face.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. I promise." She took his hands off her face and crossed her arms over her chest, looking down at her feet while he just stared at her in confusion. She shut her eyes tightly and tried to get the image of the corpse out of her mind, but it was no use. She'd seen too many dead bodies over the past week and she had a feeling that it wasn't going to stop any time soon.

"Isaac, look." Scott said, making him turn to face the body. He swallowed a hard lump in his throat as his nose suddenly became alert to the metallic smell of all the blood that was dripping onto the leaves.

"That's the kid you said went missing, isn't it? The one who came into Deaton's office?" Stiles looked at his best friend, who gave him a reluctant nod. The four teenagers stood huddled together as they couldn't help but stare at the scene in front of them. The body count was rising and they were afraid they'd never be able to stop it.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Bad Mood" by The Vaccines. _

**I wanted to add in a little more of a fight between Isaac and Aiden just 'cause. haha. Also, the mid-season finale leaked and I ended up watching it. BUT NOT TO WORRY. I WON'T SPOIL ANYTHING, I PROMISE. And I also plan on watching the show at its normal airtime because the show itself needs good ratings so that we can get renewed for another season! If you've already watched the episode I really suggest watching it again when it airs. **

**Also, yesterday I got some really good inspiration for a chapter (that doesn't have an actual timeline placement as of yet) that details why Deucalion actually wants Carmen to be in his pack so hopefully I can iron out all the details of that soon and give it to you guys sometime in the future. :)**


	19. Bad Blood

**Chapter 18**

_"These are the days that bind you together, forever. And these little things that define you forever, forever. All this bad blood here, won't you let it dry?"_

Isaac couldn't stop glowering at the twins. Everybody understandably had their eyes glued to the body tied to the tree, but not him. He couldn't stop the anger from flowing back into his veins.

"Get these kids away from here!" Sheriff Stilinski's booming voice didn't even work to break him away from his thoughts of rage. It was binding around him and solidifying around his heart. He'd make sure that they never got close to her. He'd make sure that Scott would protect her because he knew that Derek wouldn't do anything.

"Dad, look. It's the same as all the others." Stiles said hurriedly, showing his dad the marks around the bloody neck. Carmen kept tugging on his arm to get him to move away but he wouldn't yield.

"Yeah, I see, I see. Just please do me a favor and go back to school." His father replied tiredly, rubbing his temples. Sometimes he just wished that Stiles would let him get his job done. He knew that all was meant well with the tips, but the sheriff knew what he was doing and he'd like it a lot more if his son believed in him a little bit. "And today's Wednesday, right?" He asked, looking over at how Carmen was slowly but surely getting his kid away like he had asked.

"Yeah but why's that important?" Stiles rolled his eyes, trying to pry her slender fingers off his gray sweatshirt. He stopped to admire the aqua-colored polish on her nails then quickly snapped himself out of it. His father gave him an "are you serious?" look that he realized was probably genetic and he nodded, finally letting her pull him away. She usually came over to his house on Wednesdays to hand out and to make dinner so they could take it to his dad if he had to work late, and Stiles definitely knew that would be happening tonight. "Right." He nodded, tightening his lips together.

"KYLE!" Another loud voice that couldn't break Isaac from his rage. A blonde girl tried to run to the body but was held back by the sheriff's deputy. He noticed the way the twins looked back and forth from the girl to the body, and he couldn't help but think that they wanted the body to be him and the screaming girl to be Carmen. He only got angrier.

"Hey, are you okay?" Hers was the only voice to bring him back down. To anchor him. "Isaac?" She put her hand on his shoulder and his fists tightened. He couldn't imagine then laying a finger on her—taking her away from him. She had no idea what their plans were. She was so naive to think that everything would be fine if it was left on its own.

"I'm fine." His voice was low as he ripped his shoulder away from her hand and followed Scott and Stiles as they walked down the hill. He didn't want her to calm him down. He needed the anger to fuel him. He wasn't going to be swayed. "You see the way the twins looked at him?" He couldn't help but look over his own shoulder again and again.

"Oh, you mean like they didn't have a clue as to what was going on? Then yeah." Stiles rolled his eyes, making Isaac's glare snap in his direction. Carmen laughed nervously and scratched the back of her neck. Isaac and Scott definitely trusted each other, but the same couldn't have been said for Isaac and Stiles. She always felt like there was a barrier between them, like some sort of arrogance that made Isaac refuse to believe that Stiles could be of any use because he was just a run-of-the-mill human. It sort of made her think if that's what made him so keen to protect her all the time. If he saw her as weak just because she couldn't heal from wounds or because she didn't have superhuman agility or strength.

There were other ways to be powerful.

"No, they knew. They definitely knew." He growled, making sure he had his arm around his girlfriend's shoulders as he made momentary eye contact with Aiden. "Of _course _the little 'guy problem' you have is with an Alpha. And obviously it's just gotta be with that one." He grumbled at her, making her eyebrows shoot up.

"And somehow this is my fault?" She put her hands on her hips, shrugging his arm off her shoulders. "If there's more to this than you're telling me then somebody better open their goddamn mouths right now." She pointed her finger at all three of them, immediately shrouding their faces in the same exact expressions. Tightened lips, clenched jaws, and nervously evasive eyes.

"I'll tell you later." Scott insisted, nodding at her while Stiles and Isaac just stared at their feet guiltily. "Right now we gotta find out who killed that kid up there."

"I'm telling you, it was the twins." Isaac grit his teeth, still refusing to give way.

"And _I'm _telling you that it wasn't!" Stiles didn't falter when the cold blue stare came his way. He wasn't going to back down this time. Isaac was letting the twins get into his head and that was exactly what they wanted from him. They wanted him to get angry enough to kill. Angry enough to show cracks in his armor. "All of them were strangled with a garrote! Carmen saw the body just now! Are she and I the only ones sensing the lack of werewolf-itude in these murders?" She had one of her arms crossed over her chest and she was biting down on her thumbnail, her mind clearly occupied by something else.

"Oh, what, you think it's a coincidence that they show up and people start dying?" Isaac scoffed, suddenly noticing how she was standing closer to Stiles than she was to him. He puffed out his chest a little bit and continued walking with the group until they stopped at the bottom of the hill.

"Well, no. But I still don't think it's them." Stiles insisted, crossing his arms over his chest. Carmen was now so close to him that their shoulders were pressed together. At least he had her on his side.

"Scott? What about you?" Isaac tightened his lips together when he realized that his own girlfriend wasn't going to be in his corner for this. He didn't know if he should have felt betrayed or if he really should have rethought his decision. He was too angry to even consider another emotion.

"I don't know yet."

That made the three other teenagers stop walking. "What do you mean, you don't know yet!?" Stiles and Carmen shouted at the same time, throwing their hands out at him in disbelief. Isaac rolled his eyes, trying to quell the thought of having another set of twins he had to worry about.

"He's got a point..." Scott's affirmation made him stand up a little taller. "Come on, guys. Human sacrifices?"

"Scott, your eyes turn into yellow glowsticks! Hair literally grows from your cheeks and then will immediately disappear and if I were to stab you then it would just magically heal! Plus right next to me I've got an honest-to-God fucking superhero who can touch people and change their emotions from the cheerful joy of a newborn child to the psychotic rage of a serial killer and turn people into robots just by staring into their eyes, but you're telling me that you can't grasp the concept of human sacrifices!?" The way Stiles had described her ability made her feel a little uneasy, but in a way he was definitely right. All of those things were well in her range.

"I don't care." Isaac said with a snide tone, making her ears prick up. He tried to swallow normally as he glanced up at her and saw the hurt in her eyes. It was like somebody had just slapped her across the face.

_"They're sacrifices." Her voice escalated in pitch and her lips started to tremble. Her bright blue eyes turned into huge glass marbles. "Those killings...they weren't just some werewolf running around for fun, Isaac. More people are going to die. More innocent people are going to die." His mind turned numb._

_The only thing his body could process was what was right in front of him, and that was how upset she was. How much pain she was in. How the tears fell from her eyes onto her face. His actions were almost unconscious in a way. Hold her. Kiss her forehead. Wipe away her tears. Tell her that everything would be okay. He did what his instincts told him to do, but somehow he felt like it still wasn't enough. "Shhh, shhh...it's okay, it's okay. I'm here, I'm here...shhhh..." He cradled the back of her head in his palm, resting the side of his chin on her forehead as he felt her crying into his neck. "I won't let anything happen to you." As if she would have ever thought otherwise._

If he'd believed her before then what was making him change his mind now? It had to be something to do with the twins or just with the Alpha Pack in general. She could sense how uptight he was. How he'd refused to let her calm him down and how bitter he was acting towards Stiles. Something was getting inside his head. "Don't call yourself her friends and act like nothing's happening! They're gonna get her killed!" He spat with anger, clenching his jaw. "They killed that kid, they killed the girl that saved me, and I'm gonna kill them too." A darkness flooded into his blue eyes and his voice took on a tone of conviction. He was invested into it now.

He turned to walk back to the gym but Carmen reached out and grabbed his wrist, forcing him to face her. "Isaac, don't do it. Think about it first, _please_."

He ripped his arm away from her with a harsh and frozen look in his blue eyes. One that she'd never seen directed at her. One that he was almost apologetic for having to wield.

"I'll do what I need to do."

* * *

Scott and Carmen congregated in their usual corner of the library, and he sighed deeply when he realized all the things he had to fill her in on before the next period. Physics. Which meant they'd both have to hold Isaac down before he did something stupid, if he wasn't already doing it now. "And Isaac didn't tell you like...anything?" If Scott was being honest with himself, he was more than a little surprised that Isaac had decided to take something so important into his own hands. Something so important that he was tasked with having to go behind her back and keep it a secret from her, let alone swearing her two best friends to keep it a secret from her.

_"Can I help you?" Stiles scoffed, opening the door to Scott's house to see Isaac standing in front of him with his hands deep inside his pockets and his broad shoulders hunched up. He looked like he'd just run from wherever he'd come from. There was sweat dripping down his forehead and his cheeks were flushed. _

_"I need to talk to Scott." He'd much rather avoid having to get through Stiles for something like this, but he decided that maybe it would be better to have three heads than two. Whatever helped him stop Deucalion from tempting her into his pack. Whatever kept her the safest. _

_"Isaac? What are you doing here?" Scott came into view and let Isaac into the house, much to Stiles's annoyance. They were supposed to be hanging out and watching movies. A bro thing. And Isaac wasn't welcome. Stiles rolled his eyes and slumped onto the couch while the two werewolves congregated in the kitchen. "Is something wrong?"_

_"It's Carmen." He replied uneasily, rolling his shoulders back and forth. Stiles's couldn't help but pay attention once he heard her name. "She's in danger."_

"And there could be some stuff that's more important and there's still definitely a lot that we need to learn about, but you just have to stay away from the twins. And I believe in your ability one hundred percent, I just don't want you to get hurt. If you can play them a little bit to get an angle then only do it if you know it's safe. Be smart about it." Scott was putting full trust in her capabilities, something that she felt like Isaac was afraid of doing. "I'll try my best to get Isaac to go along with it, but I'm not gonna make any promises. If he sees you talking to Aiden then he's gonna try to tear his head off.

"So you want me to use myself as bait...?" She asked unsurely, nervously toying with her fingers. She had to keep reminding herself to not chip her nail polish off. It was a bad habit.

"No, not exactly. You're just gonna push him so that we can figure out what they want."

She took in a deep breath and looked down at her feet, slowly nodding as she remembered something from over the summer during her time with Danielle. It was something that she'd just disregarded, something that she pushed to the back of her mind because she thought it wasn't important. "I think...I think I already know."

_"So how do you know Peter again?" Carmen asked her mentor, merely out of of curiosity. Danielle's full lips tightened into a thin line and she realized that she'd have to let her know sooner or later. Opening up old wounds wasn't something she was keen on doing but it would serve a purpose. _

_She could have just lied. She could have just told her that they were old friends. But somehow, she just couldn't do it. They were the same and it had been a long time since she remembered what happened to the last pathokinetic she'd encountered. "I, um...I was part of the Hale pack." She replied uneasily, shifting in her chair at the kitchen table. _

_"But you're not a wolf." The teenage girl stated plainly, making Danielle chuckle. There was still so much she had yet to learn and it didn't all have to do with her powers. _

_"I was their eochair. It means key in Gaelic. It's a position in a wolf pack that's personally set aside for people like us, Carmen. Alpha humans with mental abilities. The eochair works along with the emissary, helping the pack along. Sort of like a guide but at the same time a member of the pack. You're connected to them." She rubbed her hands together nervously, her deep green eyes staring off into space. "Depending on what your ability is your connection will always be different. I could read their minds. It was sort of like a network of thoughts. It was useful. It kept Derek out of trouble a couple times." She laughed sadly, remembering when keeping Derek Hale out of trouble only meant stopping him from running out into the woods as a little kid. _

_"So what do you think my ability does?" She couldn't help but ask. She was interested now. _

_"I knew somebody like you a long time ago." Danielle's voice was dark and quiet, like she was remembering somebody who was now nothing but a memory to her. When she looked back at Carmen it was like she was staring straight into the eyes of a ghost. "She'd sense her pack's emotions. She didn't even have to look at them to feel it. And she sometimes she could even feel what they were going through, like she was experiencing it with them."_

_"What happened to her?" She thought that maybe if she could find whomever Danielle was talking about then maybe it could open more doors for her...more ways for her to make herself better—_

_"She's dead." Danielle's face turned stony and cold as her features set. "Her Alpha killed her."_

_The strawberry blonde swallowed a lump in her throat and nodded slowly, not knowing if she should have said anything. She didn't know what she'd say. _

_"I'd be careful if I were you." Careful was the only word that Alpha humans could universally communicate to each other when taking the step to becoming an eochair. Danielle sounded like she'd already given the warning to somebody else. Somebody who hadn't listened. "Your ability makes you valuable. More valuable than plenty of other Alpha humans out there. Be wary of the pack you attach yourself to. Don't let them take advantage of you."_

_She didn't think she'd be joining a pack anytime soon. After all, Derek was the only Alpha she knew of and she was pretty sure that he found her useless and annoying. Then the thought of the Alpha Pack came into her head. She brushed it off. They seemed like they'd done just fine without an eochair, or whatever Danielle called it. _

"He's gonna do something that's gonna get him hurt, isn't he?" Her boyfriend, the reckless idiot. Her boyfriend, the overprotective nutcase. Her boyfriend, the one who loved her much more than he loved himself. She knew that all he was trying to do was keep her safe, but that wasn't an excuse to kill people. She and Scott both knew that he couldn't take both of the twins by himself. They'd rip his arms off before he even hit them.

"Not if we have anything to say about it."

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Bad Blood" by Bastille. _

**Sorry this update took so long! I've been hauling on summer work. Anyways, you guys just got a little peek at the mythology behind Carmen's role in the whole scheme of things and I've always loved to add my own meta haha. In the coming chapters there's definitely going to be a lot of that. This chapter is riddled with foreshadowing galore and the Danielle flashback makes sense of something that happened in a past chapter. One about water. *cough* NINE *cough*. AND IF YOU FIND IT MAKE SURE TO REVIEW BECAUSE I WANT TO HEAR YOUR TAKE ON IT.**

** Also I've figured out what I'm going to do with Allisaac and instead of making it a romantic thing I'm going to develop them as a friendship instead because personally I think them being love interests does nothing for me or the story as a whole. ****My personal opinion is that Allisaac was only written in because Crystal and Daniel were dating and because it was convenient. I'd just much rather them be good friends than be love interests and I don't want that drama to take away from the plot either. **


	20. So He Won't Break

**Chapter 19**

_"And you know the difference it makes, and you know all that it takes is love so he won't break, he won't break. He's crazy from the pain and can't get hurt again. If he ever falls I'd feel sorry for us all."_

"They're here for a reason, and it's not just for her. Give us a chance to figure it out before you do anything, okay?" Scott's voice did nothing to pull Isaac down from his oncoming surge of anger. He had his hand on the left side of his face, shielding him from possibly looking at Carmen from the corner of his eye. His ears were steadily trained on her heartbeat and he could tell that she was getting uncomfortable. He could tell that he was putting her in a difficult position. "Isaac?"

He could sense Carmen about to move her hand to put it on his thigh to calm him down. He immediately flinched before she could touch him and he closed his legs together, shifting his body in the complete opposite direction of her. He had to shut her off for this. He _wanted _to be angry. "Isaac, please just listen to us. We can figure it out. You don't need to prove a point." It wasn't just proving a point. He couldn't believe that two of them thought it was something so stupid, something so _simple. _He didn't want to understand their logic either. He felt like he was going to explode if he stayed in the room with them any longer. He needed to get away. He needed to find the twins and make them pay. To make sure they stayed far away from him and the people he loved and cared about.

Protection was a chief instinct to him now. He'd never had it offered to him when he needed it so now he was going to make sure that everybody around him had it. He wouldn't treat them like his father had treated them. He'd make sure they were safe. He'd make sure nobody would ever hurt them.

"Isaac, please." Her voice was gentle and he tried his best to not bask in it. It was so hard for him to not let her calm him down. He was just so used to it. She lifted her hand up onto the lab table and reached out to wrap her fingers around his. His hand was furiously tapping a pen against the tabletop as he got more impatient.

His hand immediately ripped away from hers once their skin touched and he could hear the breath hitch in her throat. He'd never refused to let her touch him. _Never. _Sometimes it was the only thing that made him better. "Don't touch me." He growled, shaking his head. He couldn't look at her now. He didn't want to imagine the look on her face but his mind wandered. He could see it so clearly in his mind that he didn't have to look at her. Her lips tightening together. Her eyes starting to water. Her trying to take in a breath but instead hiccuping in a mouthful of air like she was forcing herself not to show any weakness. That was it. He couldn't take it anymore. The longer he deliberated with himself the longer he was putting her through stress. "Mr. Harris, can I use the bathroom?"

As soon as his teacher gave him permission he bolted out of his seat and nearly ran out the door. "I have to go to the bathroom too!" Scott shot up immediately, garnering a few laughs and intrigued looks from the class. Carmen shook her head and blew hot air out of her mouth, sensing that the look Harris was giving him didn't seem to be one of consent.

Her knee started to bounce up and down. They were wasting time. "One at a time." Harris motioned for Scott to sit down, but he didn't seem like he was going to be doing that. He racked his brain for excuses.

"But Mr. Harris, I like, I reaaaally have to go. Like, medical emergency." Carmen groaned. Scott was such a terrible liar. He even started bouncing up and down on his heels to signify that he had to pee. What was he, four years old? Did he really have to do the potty dance in front of a room full of teenagers?

"Mr. McCall...if your bladder suddenly exploded and urine began to pour from every orifice of your body, I would still respond _one at a time_." The room gave a collective gulp and turned their heads down to look back at their notes. "Is that enough hyperbole for you or would you like for me to come up with something more vivid?" There was a reason that nobody liked Harris.

"No, no. I'm fine." Scott nodded, holding a reserved look on his face as he sat down. She glanced over her shoulder at him and she could tell that he was already hearing something that she couldn't. He looked back at her and nodded, signifying that now was the time for Plan B.

"Mr. Harris?" She called sweetly, getting to her feet. He looked into her eyes and she smiled widely, pulling him in. "Scott and I both really have to go to the bathroom, and if you could just bend the rules for us it would mean the world to me." She bat her eyelashes and stepped out into the aisle, watching with content as blankness washed over his features. He uncrossed his arms from his chest and gestured for them to leave the room and she reached behind her and grabbed Scott's hand to pull him with her. At least nine other students probably thought they were going to go have a threesome with Isaac.

When she twisted the door handle and stepped out in the hallway she saw her boyfriend standing in front of her with a bloodied Ethan at his feet. She looked up at him with a panicked look in her eyes and he opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but the words never came out. "What's going on?" Harris called after them, stepping out into the hallway. Scott yanked Carmen backwards with him, distancing them from Isaac and Ethan. The last thing they needed was for all three of them to get in trouble at the same time.

"Are you all right?" Danny immediately rushed to Ethan, helping him to his feet. Carmen couldn't help herself if she thought they were cute together.

"He just...he just came after me. I didn't even see him." Somehow there was something about what Ethan said that didn't make sense to her. He was an Alpha. He'd have known where Isaac was even if he was standing thirty feet behind him.

"Isaac, what the hell did you do?" Harris asked incredulously, now believing that all the chatter he heard in the halls was true. Isaac Lahey, once the quiet and shy boy who never even looked at anybody was now a force to be reckoned with. Somebody who people were scared of.

Isaac poked his tongue into his cheek and looked up at his friends for some help or at least a little assurance. He never got it. Carmen didn't seem impressed and neither did Scott. He could feel his stomach sink. They looked so disappointed in him. He wanted to protect them and instead he ended up looking like an idiot instead. He didn't know what he was supposed to say. _"I walked out into the hallway and the one of the twins started beating the other one up." _That wasn't exactly the smartest possible excuse since all the freshman ever said about Isaac was that they were afraid he'd rip their limbs off if they looked at his girlfriend for too long.

"I'll have to give you a lunchtime detention." Harris crossed his arms over his chest, ushering Isaac back into the classroom as the bell rang so that he could write him up.

"You know that's just gonna get him more angry, right?" Carmen rolled her eyes, leaning up against the lockers by the classroom as she and Scott waited for him to get out so they could talk to him. "Why don't they just try to make you pissy instead?" She picked at her fingernails, mumbling a vulgar word underneath her breath when she realized she'd started to chip away the shiny polish on her ring finger.

When Isaac emerged from the classroom he was immediately flanked by the two other teenagers and he knew he'd have to end up explaining himself to them. "I didn't even get to hit them." He seemed upset with himself for actually not being the one to instigate the violence. "Aiden just started hitting Ethan and then he grabbed him and threw him at me. Like, could they seriously be anymore insulting?"

"They could have made it more believable." He laughed quietly when he heard Carmen agreeing with his sarcastic comment. "I mean, really? You're going to beat up the gay twin for hitting on your girlfriend...?" The two of them turned back to Scott who was just glowering at them.

"Isaac, you shouldn't have gone after them." He said sternly, making the smiles slip off their faces. "Their goal is to get you pissed off. They're getting inside your head because you're letting them."

"Oh, so I should just let them whisk Carmen off to become some servant to their pack? Um, no thanks." He opened up his locker to put his books away and he ran his hand through his hair, trying to alleviate some of his stress.

"I'm telling you, she's not the only reason they're here. They want something else too. We can come up with a plan." Scott insisted.

"Yeah, when? After the twins have already gone off and killed somebody else?" Isaac scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"We were planning on doing it during lunch, Mr. Don't-Touch-Me." Carmen copied his exact expression and he turned to her with both of his eyebrows raised. He couldn't help it if he was slightly turned on. "But _somebody _got a little too trigger happy."

"Your sass is the absolute last thing I need right now. But..." He trailed off as he looked her body up and down, making Scott scrunch his face up in disgust. Were they normally like this with each other? He couldn't tell. But they definitely traded a lot of snark. "And I'm sure your plan is gonna work wonders if it got me out of trouble this time around." He couldn't tell if he was more upset about the lunchtime detention or the fact that he never got to hit Aiden again.

"Maybe if you could keep yourself under control then we can get something down." Part of the reason she was being so sarcastic towards him was because he hadn't apologized for being an ass to her. She knew he was being protective but he really had a strange way of showing it. "We're going to think of something. Just keep yourself reeled in until after lunch." The bell rang and she and Scott walked off to the cafeteria together, leaving Isaac to walk back to Harris's for detention.

"Damn, she's really hot when she's angry. I bet you like that, right Isaac? I'd be lying if I said it didn't turn me on too." Aiden laughed, looking at him from across the hall. Isaac ground his teeth together and took in a deep breath, thinking back to when he had to internalize all of his feelings. Back when he was a coward. He slammed his locker shut and sulked off down the hallway.

* * *

"Did you tell anyone that I was at the school the other night?" Allison asked quietly, completely turning her body towards Isaac. She'd stopped stacking the toilet paper on the shelf but he was occupying himself, probably so that she wouldn't talk to him. That hadn't worked out in his favor. He looked over at her and shrugged, shaking his head. "Not Scott, not Derek, not Carmen?" He shook his head again.

"Nah, was I supposed to?" He really didn't want to be talking to her right now. Just being in the same room with her was making him unbelievably uncomfortable. Not to mention the size of the closet seemed to be shrinking by itself. He kept throwing nervous glances over his shoulder to make sure the door was still open. It was like he could only take a full breath in if he saw that there was an open space within sight.

"It would just make me really happy if you didn't." She smiled slightly, returning to her job. He couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"Well, you being happy really isn't a big priority of mine. Since you stabbed me. Twenty times. With knives." She hadn't stopped at 10 or 15. She'd gone to twenty. The more he talked about it the more he still felt kind of felt it. He swallowed and gingerly rubbed his chest, trying to shake himself out of it.

"I, um...I apologized to Carmen. We're friends again, you know." Maybe that would make him like her better, she didn't know. That sort of just made him a little more irritated.

"Well, I'm not her. So that doesn't really do anything for me." He shrugged passively, just wishing that she'd stop talking to him. He wanted to slap himself in the face for getting this detention. He could have been actually helping the situation and coming up with a plan with Scott and Carmen. Instead he was standing in a painfully small janitor's closet with a girl who tried to murder him.

"Well, I'm, um...sorry." She mumbled quickly under her breath, realizing that he wasn't going to let her off the hook. She heard him chuckle softly and she turned to see him with a smirk covering his features.

"Was that...was that an apology?" The tone of his voice was so ridiculously cocky that her cheeks managed to flush. Even when he wasn't flirting with people he was still flirting with him. It was like his demeanor commanded it.

"Would you accept an apology?" Carmen had given in a lot easier than she'd thought, so maybe Isaac would forgive her too. It was worth a shot. She needed them on her side. She needed things to be back to normal, at least partially.

He started laughing again and he was in mid-sentence when the door to the closet shut and the red emergency lights turned on. Suddenly her trained ears could hear his breath get caught in his throat as he immediately flicked his head in the direction of the now closed entrance. He rushed over to turn the door handle over and over again to no avail, his heartbeat beginning to skyrocket. "No, no, no, no, no..." He said frantically, the pitch of his voice ascending with every passing moment.

"Maybe it locked from the outside?" Claustrophobia was something that Allison could only understand if she was in an extremely tightly-packed elevator. Even then she'd only felt extremely uncomfortable. But Isaac didn't just have claustrophobia. He had extreme, paralyzing fears of being in a small and enclosed space. He hadn't been in one since the freezer. It wasn't just a phobia. It was the manifestation of a nightmare.

"No, I think there's something up against it." He grunted as he exerted his body's weight on the door coupled with twisting the handle, feeling the pressure from the outside. His thoughts were starting to blur. He had to keep telling himself that he was going to be fine. "Oh God, oh God...okay, okay...come on..." He mumbled to himself and to the situation that was beginning to take place. Not again. it couldn't be happening again.

"Isaac, relax. Isaac." Allison repeated, not knowing how else she was supposed to calm him down. She'd never had to deal with somebody who was having a panic attack before. He only kept mumbling to himself and his shortness of breath was growing more and more frequent.

"No, no, no...come on, please, please, please...not again, please..." His voice started to crack into whines as he ran his hands through his hair and pressed his body up against the door, praying that there would be somebody who could hear him. Somebody who could help him. Make everything better.

But nobody would be able to. He was by himself now. He was alone. And he was suffocating.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "So He Won't Break" by The Black Keys._

**I'm thinking about getting at least one or two updates in before school starts up for me on the 28th so you guys will have that to look forward to. Also, I just got to 100 follows so thank you so much to everybody who's read! My next goal is to get to 100 reviews so if you guys could expedite that I'd love it haha. :)**

**Also, to the anonymous reviewer who said that the references in the last chapter were from when Carmen started to feel Isaac's pain, then you're right. On the agenda before I close out writing episode 4: her first meeting with Deucalion and some Stiles/Carmen bonding, because everybody knows that's the best. hahahaha :)**


	21. Panic Station

**Chapter 20**

_"Oh, 1, 2, 3, 4 fire's in your eyes. And this chaos, it defies imagination. Oh, 5, 6, 7, 8 minus 9 lives...you've arrived at panic station."_

"You know Derek gave Isaac's room to Cora?" Scott asked Carmen casually, sliding his elbows farther out onto the table. She looked at him with her eyebrows raised and he knew that Isaac hadn't been lying when he said that he didn't tell her because she'd get freaked out.

"What? Are you kidding? Please, please tell me that you're joking." Her voice was panicked as she started to ramble, her fingers tapping on the tabletop and her eyes moving quickly from side-to-side. "Oh my God, where the hell is he sleeping!? I can't believe Derek would do something like that! That's ridiculous!"

"He said on the floor." He sighed, giving her a sympathetic look. She groaned and covered her face with her hands, shaking her head. Reason number 23849 whey she didn't really like Derek Hale. She couldn't believe that he'd relocated his beta to the floor, let alone his _first _beta. There was something about it that screamed BAD ALPHA. "But you can talk to him about it later. Right now we gotta figure out a way to get to the twins."

"I was actually thinking that—oh, Christ...Jesus, that hurts..." She mumbled, holding her chest as she took a breath in. It felt like somebody was was stepping down on her sternum, applying an insane pressure to her ribcage. She couldn't breathe. It sort of felt like she was..._suffocating._

_"I used to have dreams like that all the time...I still do sometimes." Isaac confessed, now holding one of her hands between both of his. "I'd be in the...freezer. Late at night. And sometimes I'd fall asleep in there because I'd just get so tired or screaming for help." He'd never told anybody this before. He was scared to. "And I'd have dreams that I was suffocating."_

"What's wrong?" Concern immediately covered his features as he rushed over to the other side of the table to try and calm her down. He thought she was having a panic attack. He remembered when Stiles would get them right after his mother died. It was terrifying for him just to bear witness to; he couldn't actually imagine what it felt like to be going through one. "Hey, look at me. What's wrong?" He asked again as he put his arm around her shoulders and turned her body towards him.

"I don't know," She breathed out, trying to regain her breath. Her heart was beating out of her chest. He could hear it thumping in his ears. "It's like I'm having an asthma attack or something." Or maybe just really strong heart palpitations. She was obviously far too young to get a heart attack. She looked up into Scott's calming brown eyes and the feeling began to subside, but the pressure was still weighing down on her. She took in a deep breath and countered the weight, now suddenly feeling light-headed instead.

"I'm gonna take you to the nurse." He said just to be sure, helping her to her feet. He slung both of their backpacks over his shoulder and they walked out of the cafeteria together.

"Scott, I'm fine. Seriously." Her breathing was almost back to normal and she stopped leaning on him for support. He furrowed his brow together and shrugged in admission, giving her a reluctant nod. He just made sure to walk only a few inches away from her in case she ended up falling over. "And about the twins, just getting them distracted..." A smile covered her face as she found herself looking at the strands of strawberry blonde hair hanging by her shoulders.

"Yeah, what?" He asked, wrinkling his nose in confusion because he thought he heard something coming from down the hallway. He ignored it for the time being so she could finish her thought.

"Well you know who's really into Aiden?" She laughed, remembering how Lydia had basically spilled her guts to her the other day. "Lydia."

_"Ugh, honestly Carmen. It sucks. I need a distraction." Lydia rolled her eyes, shaking her head. They were hanging out in her room studying for a physics test that was coming up in a couple of days. "And that Aiden kid, wow." She blew hot air out of her mouth and fanned herself, making Carmen burst out laughing. _

_"You want him? You got him."_

Scott nodded but she could tell that there was something bothering him. Then suddenly he grabbed her hand and started running down the hallway to follow the banging noise that kept bothering him. "Shit! Somebody's in there!" He yelled as he ran to the janitor's closet to push away the vending machine.

"ISAAC, ISAAC! STOP!" Carmen heard Allison's voice screaming from the inside. Her heart stopped beating. Scott ripped the door open and grabbed the back of Isaac's white t-shirt, yanking him out of the janitor's closet and onto the ground. Carmen tried to move in closer but Scott made sure that she was far away. Isaac was volatile now. Volatile enough to kill. He jammed his hand down onto the flailing boy's neck and screamed his name, suddenly lulling him into submission.

There was a certain dominance to Scott's voice that nobody had ever heard before...it was so commanding that it made the three other teenagers in the room freeze. Isaac's eyes immediately turned back to their normal blue and he scrambled up against the wall, holding his head into his hands like a frightened child. "I'm so sorry," His voice was high and shaky as he tried to get his heartbeat to return to its normal pace. It wasn't working.

"Shhh, shhh..." He felt Carmen's warm hand on his forearm, suddenly flooding him with relief. She looked up at Allison and saw that there were two long scratch marks on the inside of her arm, steadily flowing with blood.

"I'm okay, I'm okay. It's fine." She assured Scott over and over again as he held her arm to try and get a better look. Her voice was shaky and understandably so. Carmen knew how she felt. When Isaac had turned the night Boyd and Cora escaped from the bank, she'd felt the same kind of fear. Back then he'd fought to control his shift but the pain had been unbearable. Now the shift was what controlled him in this situation. He couldn't have helped himself. He was trapped and the only way from him to get out would have been to shift.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do that!" Isaac's timid voice apologized over and over again even as Carmen tried desperately to calm him down. It was like the urge and the necessity to apologize was so much engrained into his system that he had to keep doing it. He had to keep saying he was sorry until he sounded like a broken record. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

She put her hand on the back of his neck and shushed him again and again, hoping to get his pulse to stabilize. "It's not your fault, shh..." He still wouldn't look at her. His eyes were racing from Allison to Allison's arm to Scott's face then back again. His own body had betrayed him. As far as he was concerned, he was a killer.

"It's okay, it's not his fault." The admission of Allison's voice suddenly sent him back to normal. She was the one he'd hurt and she was the one who was saying it was okay. He swallowed the hard lump in his throat and nodded weakly, rubbing his sweaty palms on his pants.

Scott's jaw tightened as he realized that the twins weren't just playing around. Their purpose was a lot more sinister than getting Isaac a little pissed off and now they were infringing on the safety of the people he cared about. "I guess now I know that they wanna do more than just get you angry...they wanna get someone hurt." That had been evidenced when they had attacked Isaac and they had set him up in the closet knowing that it would trigger his claustrophobia.

"So are we gonna do something about it?" To have his panic attack be put on full display like that, Isaac wasn't just traumatized and vulnerable he was _embarrassed. _He was still unused to the feeling of having people care about him that he always paid attention to the details of what he said when he was in public because he was still afraid of being left again. That's why he withstood sleeping on the floor at Derek's and that's why he put up not being let in on secrets, whether they be secrets about his pack or secrets from Carmen's past. Of course it bothered him, but he'd never say a word.

"Yeah." Scott's fists tightened as something shifted behind his eyes. _Anger. _"We're gonna make them angry too. Really, really angry."

* * *

"You know, I personally always thought he'd look really hot on one of those." Carmen laughed as she looked at the picture of Isaac on Aiden's motorcycle on Scott's phone. "Kid definitely doesn't disappoint." There had to be some way for her to buy him one because he was almost too good-looking to _not_ have a motorcycle.

As they walked into Ms. Blake's classroom she reached in her pocket to silence the ringer on her cell phone when it started buzzing because she was getting a text from Stiles, who was supposed to be in class with them. She hadn't seen him since last period.

**Stiles - **Thank God you're coming over tonight. We gotta talk.

**Carmen -** This isn't about puberty, is it Dad? Because I already know a lot more than you think I do.

**Stiles - **Serious business but 7/10 on the joke. Not bad.

She laughed to herself and silenced her phone, tucking it back into her pocket. She took her seat next to Scott just as Ms. Blake came back into the room and she couldn't help but smile as Scott started taking the motorcycle parts out of his bag. "That looks kind of important..." He raised his eyebrows, looking over at the twins who both seemed to be well-immersed in shock. "Man, I have no idea what this does. You have any idea, Carm?" He took another part out of his bag, setting it on the desk.

She looked over at Aiden and bat her eyelashes innocently, tossing a couple of really important-looking nuts and bolts into Scott's hands. "Nope, not a chance." A wide grin covered her face as Aiden shot up from his seat and ran out the classroom door. He must have heard Isaac coming down the hallway.

"Aiden, don't!" But Ethan was already too late. His brother had shattered the line of anger. He was about to kill somebody. Miss Blake watched as the twin ran outside and she stood in confusion for a couple moments before actually thinking about going to out to see what was going on.

Meanwhile, Isaac was thinking that everything was over a little too soon as he pulled up to a stop in front of Aiden. The look on his face was absolutely priceless. Tightened jaw and barred teeth. He couldn't have been any more angry. "GET OFF MY BIKE!" He growled, firmly holding it in place even as it was pulled to a stop. Isaac couldn't keep the smirk off his face as he took the helmet off his head, making sure that he savored every moment.

"No problem." The arrogance of his voice almost matched the arrogance of Aiden's tone when he'd talked to Carmen earlier that day on the track. "And by the way, I know she's hot. That's why she's _mine_." He handed Aiden back his helmet then proceeded to push off against the front of the motorcycle as he flipped over just in time to act like nothing had happened when people started to flood into the hallway.

"Somehow I feel like he's not going to be giving you any more problems." Scott said to Carmen out of the corner of his mouth as Isaac put his arm around her shoulders, leaning in to kiss the side of her face. She laughed softly and shook her head, reaching up to touch the hand Isaac had placed around her shoulder.

* * *

"How do you get home from Derek's?" Scott asked curiously as he saw Isaac pack some clothes into his large duffel bag. The teenager looked up at him with a sort of embarrassed expression on his face but he opened his mouth to speak anyways.

"I, um...I walk. To the bus stop." He replied quietly, giving a passive shrug. Scott knew for a fact that there weren't any bus stops remotely close to Derek's house.

"How far?" He couldn't help but press on. First sleeping on the floor and now this. It was beyond explanation why Derek could afford to buy a new apartment and a new car yet not be able to afford his very first beta a car of his own or a mattress for that matter.

Isaac swallowed a lump in his throat as he rolled his broad shoulders backwards and forwards. Scott could tell that he was getting uncomfortable. "It's like a mile. Not even. It's not a big deal, I like walking." He said the last three words almost spitefully. And he knew that the bus stop was a lot farther away than a mile. It was actually closer to two and a half. But walking that long back and forth was a lot better than being locked in a freezer.

"Why don't you ask Carmen to give you rides to school?" Her car was more than inviting but he'd entertained that possibility far too many times. He hadn't even told her how he got to school. He looked down at his feet and scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

"It's just really out of her way. Derek's is in the opposite direction of her house and I just don't want her to waste gas on me if I can walk, you know?" Not to mention his pride. It was so horrifyingly embarrassing to him that he walked almost three miles to the bus stop to get to school while his girlfriend drove a Range Rover. He didn't want to ask her for a ride because it would make him feel weak and like it was some sort of charity. Scott knew that Carmen wouldn't even think twice about giving him a ride.

"Well then let me give you a ride instead." Scott replied, noticing at once how Isaac had put a pair of running shoes in his duffel bag. He was even too embarrassed to change into a different pair of shoes in front of Scott.

His ears immediately perked up and his blue eyes widened in something that resembled shock. "Really?" He still had his hands around the shoes, and he was beginning to pull them out of the bag.

"Yeah, it's no problem." Scott smiled warmly, giving him a nod. To him it was the least he could do. He felt so sorry for Isaac that he wished there was something else he could give to him, something a lot more important than just a ride home.

Isaac brushed off the shock he still had on his face and tried his best to act casually about things. "Yeah." His pink lips spread into a toothy grin as he nodded, picking up the bag and slinging it over his shoulder. He was still getting used to friendship. Maybe he'd never get used to it. He was still learning that people cared for him and that there was such a thing as unconditional love. Unconditional trust. Unconditional feelings in general. He was slowly starting to accept that for once in his life he felt like he was actually _worth it_.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Panic Station" by Muse. _

**Ughhhhhh sorry for the long wait guys! I've just been swamped with finishing up my summer work and getting all my stuff together for school. Thank goodness I'm actually done haha. At the end I decided to add in the stuff from one of the deleted scenes from this episode (I STILL HAVE NO IDEA WHY IT WAS DELETED I MEAN COME ON IT'S BEAUTIFUL) because I think it was really important to Isaac's character and I'm sad it didn't make the episode. **

**Next chapter: Carmen's first meeting with Deucalion. Muahahahaha!**


	22. Thistle & Weeds

**Chapter 21**

_"But plant your hope with good seeds, don't cover yourself with thistle and weeds. Rain down, rain down on me. Look over your hills and be still, the sky above us shoots to kill. Rain down, rain down on me."_

"Excuse me?" Carmen nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the knocking sound on the window of her car. A man with darkly tinted aviator sunglasses was staring into her window like he was trying to see if she was in the car. He clearly knew that she was, so she wondered what the point of him peering around was.

She rolled down her window and he took a small step backwards. "Yes?" She looked down and saw that he had a cane constantly moving around on the pavement. He was blind.

"I'm looking for the entrance to the school...could you direct me please?" He had an English accent and chiseled features that made Carmen think that he wasn't bad-looking for someone his age. She gave an "mhm" of admission and opened her door to get out of her car. She decided that she'd help him walk to the school. After all, she didn't have to be at Stiles's house for another half an hour and she didn't want to go home.

She offered out her arm and was about to open her mouth to tell him to take it when she felt his hand on her skin. Immediately, her body went through a strange sensation that involved far too much adrenaline for the situation at hand. She looked over at him and the neutral expression on his face had turned into a clear-cut smile. "Do you have any kids who go here?" She asked him conversationally, leading him towards the stairs. There was something off-putting about him but she couldn't quite discern it. The only thing she could compare it to was how she felt when she had met Peter for the first time.

"I guess you could say that." He chuckled softly, still using his cane to feel around for any obstacles. If only she knew. They walked up the stairs together and from the corner of her eye she saw how his brow furrowed in confusion as his ears moved. Somehow there was something about that look that was familiar to her but she couldn't tie it to anything. They arrived at the door and she moved to open the door for him but he stuck his cane out to stop her. "That will be all. Thank you, Miss Iver."

Her heart almost stopped beating as she immediately flicked her head towards him. His hand moved along the door panel to find the handle. "How...I don't...how do you know my name?" She knit her eyebrows together and cocked her head to the side, suddenly showing discomfort with her body language.

"You're a very unique girl, Miss Iver. It's difficult to not know your name." His fingers wrapped around the door handle and he pulled it open, stepping inside the main lobby of the school. She stood in the same spot for at least five minutes after he had turned a corner down the hallway, staring dumbfoundedly into space.

_"It's not Aiden and Ethan who just want you for the pack, it's their leader." Scott said, leaning in closer to her. _

_"Their leader? They're an Alpha Pack...how do they have a leader? Who is he?" She asked, somehow feeling like she had been left off an incredibly important mailing list. An Alpha of Alphas...that didn't even make sense to her. _

_"His name his Deucalion. And he's more powerful than any of them."_

* * *

"Get your feet outta my face, you degenerate." Stiles mumbled, shoving Carmen's wandering toes out of his line of sight. They were laying down on the couch watching a movie, like they usually did on their Wednesday nights. She rolled her eyes and slung her feet over the armrest on the side of the couch. He reached over and dug his hand into the bowl of popcorn that was resting on her lap and he shoved a fistful of it into his mouth, generating an obviously disgusted look from his friend's face.

"So what did you need to talk to me about?" She decided that now would have been the perfect time for it since they had just come back from the sheriff's station to give Stiles's dad his dinner. He swallowed the popcorn in his throat and picked up the remote to pause the movie. She raised one of her eyebrows at him and he took the bowl of popcorn from her lap and set it down on the coffee table in front of the couch.

"The um...remember how the pattern for the last three sacrifices was that they were all virgins?" He started to fiddle with his hands nervously, like he still wasn't sure about what he was about to say. She nodded slowly and he ended up changing his position on the couch all together, sitting cross-legged and facing her while he egged her on to do the same. "Well there's a new pattern."

She immediately sat up straighter and her shoulders tensed up. "What new pattern?"

"This last one...it was warriors. People who served in the army, or in the navy. That kind of thing, you know." He clicked his jaw uncomfortably, trying to read her face for an emotion other than fear.

"What do you mean, _this last one_?" There was no way that whoever was sacrificing people could move that quickly. It was impossible.

"I mean, we're um...we haven't found Harris's body, but we're pretty sure he's the third sacrifice." He looked down at his hands and nodded, shutting his eyes tightly. He could hear her breath hitch in her throat and he didn't want to look back up at her. He knew that if he saw she was crying then he would start too. "And the thing that's sacrificing them...Deaton told me it was this sort of Dark Druid. It's called a Darach."

She opened her mouth to saw something but it was like all of her vocal cords had suddenly been frozen and refused to move. He finally raised his eyes to look into hers and her brow was knotted in confusion and her mouth was still hanging open. "Scott?" Even if there was no context to the rest of her sentence, Stiles would still be able to know what she meant.

"No." He said quietly, looking down at his constantly fidgeting hands again. Truth be told, he was still hurt about Scott leaning towards taking Isaac's side when it came to what the purpose of the murders was. He didn't want to feel insecure, but it was a nagging necessity to him. "You, me, Lydia." Carmen nodded again and reached over to hold one of his hands in hers. Immediately it stopped shaking and he closed his fingers around hers just for the added security.

"He'll believe us, Stiles. There's no way that he can't." She said assuringly, making the sadness in his eyes fade away for just a few split seconds. He was about to say something to her when he was cut off by her phone vibrating on the coffee table. She took her hand from his and reached over to pick it up. "Speak of the devil." She laughed quietly, answering the call. "What's up?"

"Um...how fast can you be at my house?" Scott's voice was unsure over the other end of the call, suddenly making her shift her body away from Stiles and towards the door.

"I'm with Stiles right now...I mean, I'm sure I can be over there in less than half an hour, but—"

"Derek kicked Isaac out." The tone of his voice was hushed, and for a good reason. Just hearing those words made the breath get caught in Isaac's throat. He was weak again. He was waiting for help again. She was being forced to rescue him. Again. He hated it. For once he just wanted to be that boyfriend who was the knight in shining armor. It was a pathetically romanticized pipe dream of his but he nevertheless kept it at the back of his mind. The world he lived in was so depressing that he just wanted to escape someplace nice for a few minutes. "He had to run all the way to my house and all of his stuff is soaked. Do you have any of his clothes at your house?"

"Yeah, yeah. I do. I'll be over there as soon as I can." She replied quickly, hanging up the phone. She shoved her phone into her pocket and ran her hand through her hair, giving an incredibly deep sigh. "I have to go." She turned to Stiles, who'd already had a look of sadness etched in his face from the moment she picked up her phone.

"What's wrong?" He asked, more as a reflex than anything else. He wanted her to stay with him. Wednesday was their night. It was their time to talk. To hang out. To seem normal despite everything that was going on around them.

"Isaac...he um, Derek kicked him out so he's at Scott's right now." There were tears pooling at the corners of her eyes and she quickly wiped them away, walking over to the kitchen to retrieve her jacket from the backs of one of the chairs. She couldn't even see straight anymore. The only thing she could think about was getting to Isaac. Making sure that he was safe. Making sure that he wasn't thinking it was his fault.

"Oh." There wasn't really anything else that he could say. She gave him a quick hug before she opened the door to his house and left, leaving him standing in the living room by himself. "I'll uh...call you later." He mumbled after he saw her car pulling out of the driveway.

It was funny the way things worked out. First Scott picked Isaac over him. And now Carmen was doing it too.

* * *

Carmen ran up the front porch stairs of the McCall house, tightly clutching a bag of Isaac's clothes close to her chest under her jacket so that they wouldn't get wet. She furiously knocked on the door, hoping that she'd be heard over the sound of the torrential rains. Her jeans were sticking to her legs and she could feel the water getting into her socks. Scott flung the door open and pulled her inside, shutting the door tightly behind her. The rush of air that she felt once she walked into the living room made her body start to shake and she unzipped her jacket to hand Scott the bag of Isaac's clothes. A pair of sweatpants and two t-shirts, one just plain gray and the other was the long-sleeved, dark blue henley that she loved to wear so much.

"I just ran up to my room to get these...they were the only ones I could find fast enough, I mean I can probably go back home and get some more, he probably has some socks there too if I just looked—" She was so flustered that her words were coming out of her mouth almost faster than she could think about them. Her body was shaking so much and her teeth were chattering in between every syllable. Scott started to shake his head and he immediately enveloped her into a hug, trying to calm her down. The water that was dripping from her body soaked into his t-shirt but he didn't care. She was his friend and she needed him.

"These'll be fine, I promise." He nodded at her, gently taking the bag from her trembling fingers. He couldn't tell if she was crying or if there was just a lot of rain dripping down her face. It was probably a mixture of both.

"Oh God! Sweetheart, you're absolutely drenched!" Melissa gasped, running down the stairs to Carmen. Her hair was so wet that it had turned from bright strawberry blonde to dark auburn. She immediately wrapped her arms around the young girl, ushering her into the kitchen. "Scott, go see if you can find some clothes for her to wear!" All of Isaac's clothes were already in the dryer, and he was sitting upstairs in Scott's room wearing nothing but his boxers.

"Melissa, I'm fine. Seriously." She threaded her fingers through her wet hair, taking her jacket off. This downpour didn't seem like it was going to be letting up anytime soon. She was going to be with the McCalls for a while. "Is he okay?" She sat down on a chair at the table and took her shoes off, peeling her socks off her feet.

"I think he'll be fine. He ran all the way over here from Derek's house, so he's definitely a trooper." Melissa laughed quietly, smiling sadly. It was impossible for her to not feel bad for Isaac. No siblings, no parents, and now no Alpha. It was beyond understanding how life had dealt such a terrible hand of cards to somebody so sweet.

"I found a t-shirt and some shorts that don't fit me anymore, so hopefully they can work." Scott came down the stairs with some dry clothes in his hands, holding them out to her. She nodded slowly and took them from him, walking into the bathroom so that she could change. When she came out she was still awkwardly tucking the ends of Scott's t-shirt into his baggy shorts. At least they were dry.

"How is he?" She asked Scott in a hushed tone, walking up closer to him. "Did he say anything? About Derek?" She knew that if Isaac were upstairs he'd be able to hear them no problem. That coupled with the fact that he had some sort of added sensitivity to the sound of her voice and she knew that he could probably hear her no matter how quiet she was.

Scott pursed his lips and shook his head. "You wanna go up there and talk to him?" His ears could pick up the sound of Isaac wincing. "He's just um...he's a little embarrassed." He mumbled quickly into her ear before nudging her up the stairs.

Once Isaac heard her climbing the steps he quickly ran his hand through his damp hair and tried to do some deep breathing so it wouldn't look like he'd been crying for the past half hour. What was so wrong with him that made everybody run away? Was he too whiny? Was he clingy? Was he just too much of a burden? "Can I come in?" The sound of her voice stopped his racing thoughts for a few minutes. She was standing in the doorway and he realized that he hadn't closed the door.

"Yeah." He replied quietly, moving over on the side of the bed so that she'd have a place to sit next to him. Instead of doing that she stood in front of him and opened her arms up, waiting for him to hug her. He just stared up at her blankly with his reddened eyes.

"C'mmere." She laughed softly, making him scramble to his feet. He had been so lost in his own thoughts that he wasn't paying attention. He quickly wrapped his long arms around her, squeezing a little too tightly. She decided not to say anything about it. That was what he needed now. The contact. The safety. She squirmed around to get her arms free and she wrapped them around his neck, feeling him nestle his face into her shoulder.

He took in a deep breath and scrunched his nose up in confusion, moving his mouth up so that it was next to her ear. "You smell like Scott." His voice was so deadpan that it made her laugh. Even with the different smell he still wouldn't let go of her. He was hugging her so tightly that it was like a little boy hugging his security blanket.

She didn't even say anything against the length of the hug or how tightly he was squeezing her. She could feel his heart beating up against her chest. "Well that's because I'm wearing his clothes." He scrunched up his face again but decided to ignore it. He guessed that he was okay with her wearing clothes that didn't belong to him. For once. It was a long time before he opened his mouth again.

"What's wrong with me?"

Her body tightened up. "There's nothing wrong with you." She pulled away from the hug so that she could look up with him. He still looked like she was lying to him. "Isaac, listen to me. There is _nothing_ wrong with you." She said firmly, tightening her grip on his forearms.

"Then why did Derek kick me out?" He didn't look like he was mad or angry...he was upset. He was confused. Or maybe he'd expected it. "I must've done something wrong, maybe I did something, you know? To make him mad at me? Maybe I can fix it. I can fix it." He furrowed his brow together, getting lost in his own world. He was going to make things better between he and Derek. He'd do something to prove that he was worth it.

She put her hands on either side of his face and turned his jaw so that he was looking at her. "Isaac, _no_." Her voice was low and without realizing it she'd ended up pushing him. His blue eyes widened into bright orbs. "You don't need to apologize. You don't need to fix it. You didn't do _anything. _It's not your fault." He nodded slowly and he opened his mouth to say something but he quickly shut it. And then opened it again.

"Are you sure?" He felt like he was offending her by asking that question. She smiled reassuringly and ran her thumbs over his sharp cheekbones.

"Of course I am." She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him again. She'd make sure that he'd never have to ask her another question like that. This time she was the one squeezing him like a security blanket.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Thistle & Weeds" by Mumford & Sons. _

**OMFG. FOUR REVIEWS AWAY FROM 100. THIS IS REALLY EXCITING. This is the last chapter for Episode 4 and I'm really excited to start on Episode 5. That episode used a lot of flashbacks and you guys know how much I love those haha! Also I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Stiles/Carmen/Isaac triangle that's been building in the last couple of chapters. It's not a love triangle but it's more of something generally involving possessiveness and bonds among friends. Thanks to Jeff Davis saying that Isaac is going to be a huge factor in testing Scott and Stiles's friendship I think that gives me a lot to build off of especially with Carmen and Stiles's friendship. Thanks to plenty of meta out there, I also think their bond goes A LOT deeper than just two people there for each other (but it's not anything romantic). **

**I've got half days Thursday and Friday this week so hopefully that'll give me a lot of time to write if I don't have too much homework. :)**


	23. Bones

**Chapter 22**

_"And you laugh like you've never been lonely; that's alright honey, that's alright with me. Oh, you laugh like there's hope in the story; that's alright honey, that's alright with me. Oh, you laugh like I'll be there to hold you always. Always here, I'm always here, always here." _

"Sit on the inside."

"Isaac, I'm fine."

"Come on, go. There's a line."

"No, you do it."

"Carmen, don't fight me over this."

"_You_ should sit close to window. It's a long ride."

"That's not important."

"Yes it is! Isaac, come on!" She tried to nudge him but he ended up gently shoving her down into the seat on the bus so that the line of people behind them could move along. Boyd took the seat in front of them and he put his duffel bag down next to him, glaring at anybody who would have taken the risk of sitting next to him. He was still angry. And he didn't want somebody getting in his way. "Switch with me. Please." She looked up at him with a deeply-seeded frustration in her blue eyes.

"I think you're fine right there." He insisted, clamping his strong hand down on her thigh to signify that neither of them would be moving anywhere. Truth be told, he knew that he was going to get car sick down the road but he didn't care. He would have taken the window seat if Ethan had done it too. Ethan was sitting on the outside of Danny a few seats behind them. And Isaac wanted Carmen on the inside of the seat if anything ended up happening. He wanted to keep her as shielded as possible.

"We're going to be on the bus for over five hours." She eased her hand over his to soften the grip his fingers had on her. He was starting to leave bruises. "I don't want you to get—"

"I won't _get _anything." He growled in annoyance, making her close her lips together. He hated how she assumed that his claustrophobia would overtake him even during something as simple as a long road trip. In this case, she may have been right but he wasn't going to admit it easily. "Sorry." He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He looked back at her and she was already shaking her head, signifying that it was okay.

"Don't apologize. It's fine." She sunk back into the seat, choosing to not argue with him any further. It wasn't his fault that he was uptight. It was the fault of everything that had happened to him as of late. Everything that happened to Boyd. To Scott. To Derek. She lifted his arm up and put it around her shoulders so that she could lean into his body—something he greatly appreciated. He rested his head on top of hers and tried to close his eyes to see if he would be able to take a nap, but he couldn't shut his brain up long enough for that to happen. Especially not with Ethan sitting so close and Boyd being so volatile. He had to stay alert.

_"What the hell?" Carmen mumbled as she felt her bedroom shake. She hadn't lived in California long but she was pretty sure that it wasn't an earthquake. It sounded like heavy footsteps outside rather than the ground actually moving. She heard a groan come from her balcony and she hesitantly tiptoed over to the closed curtains to see what was going on. She slowly pulled back the fabric and gasped in when she saw a bruised and bloodied Isaac holding himself up against the door for support. _

_She pulled open the door and caught him as he collapsed on top of her with a grunt, struggling to regain his breath. He'd nearly sent her to the floor but she was able to hold up the weight of his body. There was blood dripping from his face and parts of his shirt were completely torn. "I really shouldn't have come empty-handed...I'll bring flowers next time." He mumbled weakly, finally getting to his feet before he swayed and dropped back into her arms again. Always with the jokes. She helped him over to her bed and she got him to lie down on her mattress before taking his shoes off. It was just a habit. No shoes on her bed. _

_She ran to her bathroom to get a wet towel to clean his face off with and he tried his best to not just fall asleep. He was so tired. So spent. He wanted to just shut his eyes for a couple minutes. She sat down on the bed next to him and gently dabbed at the wounds on his face, trying to clean some of the blood off. "Why you aren't healing?" Her voice was weak as she dabbed at the cuts on his face, taking in a sharp breath every time she saw his face contort in pain. _

_"Wounds from alphas take longer to heal." Every word that came out of his mouth was a chore. She pulled her lips into a thin line and continued to clean his blood trying to formulate a response. Scott told her he was going to reason with Deucalion and he told her that he was going to do it alone. He told her that he'd avoid bringing Isaac with him. Guess it hadn't worked out that way. "Don't be mad." He breathed out, closing his eyes. She laughed dismally and shook her head. _

_"I'm not." She didn't think that whatever happened warranted a further explanation. He was tired. He'd explain it to her in the morning. She didn't want to waste energy on being mad at him when she could feel happy that he was safe instead. "I'll make sure you feel better in the morning. Sleep." She leaned in and pressed her lips to his forehead, lulling him into deep slumber._

"Hey, are you okay?" Isaac nudged her gently about half an hour into the ride, seeing the sickened look on her face as she stared out the window. She had her book on her lap with the spine bent at about page 700, where she had stopped reading. A little closer than halfway done. He nudged her again but there was no response. It was like she hadn't even heard him in the first place. "Carmen?" He asked her again, this time leaning over so that he could get a better look at her face.

"I'm okay, I'm okay." She mumbled quietly, putting her hand on his knee to stop him from worrying. She never got sick on long rides. Ever. But this feeling wasn't even nauseating, it was just _painful_. She felt like something was continually jabbing and slashing into her side that she couldn't get rid of. "I should ask you the same question." She changed the subject, looking over at him.

"One hundred percent unharmed." He kissed the side of her temple, still racking his brain to find out what was wrong with her. Her breaths were labored and her eyes were glassy and half-hooded over. He would have guessed that she was just tired if he didn't know her body language so well.

_"Good afternoon, Heavy Sleeper." The sound of her voice roused him even more from his trance as he sat up in her bed, pushing his thick hair back from his forehead. He noticed that he was now only in his boxers and he looked around in confusion for the rest of his clothes. "I couldn't fix your shirt so I just tossed it. I washed your pants. They should be out of the dryer soon." She flipped through a page of the book she was reading. Always, always reading. Carmen without a book was like Scott without morals. It just didn't happen. _

_"Did you say afternoon?" He didn't want to get up from her bed. It was so much more comfortable than any other bed he'd ever slept in. His toes managed to hang off the end if he slept with his legs straightened but he could spend days on her mattress if he could. Maybe it was because it smelled like her. Maybe it was because something about her presence just automatically calmed him. Or maybe her bed was made out of some undiscovered alien technology. He didn't care. _

_"Sure did. It's three." She sighed, laughing softly at something that happened in her book. He didn't have to ask her if she'd been watching over him for the whole day. He just knew. "You feeling okay?" It was so easy for her to mask how terrified he'd made her. If he was always scared that she'd end up hurt, he couldn't imagine how scared she was when he actually ended up getting hurt. _

_"Yeah, I'm great, actually." He seemed confused by his own good state of health. He felt around on his chest for any cuts but they were all healed away. They'd all been from an alpha. He thought they'd take longer to heal. _

_"I did some of my alpha human voodoo magic on you." She explained, setting her book down on the dresser. "It worked when, um...when Allison stabbed you, so I just thought that if I pushed you then you'd heal." She swallowed nervously, trying not to dwell on that night. It wouldn't do her much good anyways. _

_He nodded, looking up at her with half-hooded eyes and an adorably dazed smile playing on his smooth lips. He was still absolutely exhausted. Her healing him ahead only worked for his external wounds. There was still a huge gash in his stamina and state of mind that had yet to return to full capacity. "Can I go back to sleep?" She didn't know why he felt the need to ask for permission. She sat on the bed close to him and nodded, moving some stray curls behind his ear with a soft smile._

"You're really quiet...are you sure you're fine?" Isaac saw the need to pester her again. She was starting to worry him even more now. He could hear how hard she was trying to breathe but she was trying to push through it because there was such a long ride ahead of them. She nodded and continued to stare out the window, watching as the landscape of the California desert passed the bus. He looked behind him to Stiles and the look in his eyes was something easily communicated. _Something isn't right. _His blue eyes wandered over to Scott and he saw that he was slumped against the window with the same dead stare in his eyes.

Then he got an idea.

He placed his hand on hers and locked their fingers together as he concentrated on alleviating her pain. He poked his tongue into his cheek and cringed as the veins in the back of his palm turned black, flowing up his forearm. Whatever she was feeling was a lot worse than she wanted to let on. He could feel it pulsating in his body and it wasn't just car sickness, it was a horrible, _burning _pain. He had no idea what it could have possibly come from. "What did you do?" She looked over at him, now suddenly feeling lighter and more at ease than before.

"I guess you could call it voodoo magic too." He gave her a small smile, kissing the side of her face lovingly. She nodded thankfully and rested her head on his shoulder, trying to see if taking a nap would help her out. He wrapped his long arm around her shoulders and occupied his other hand with hers, rubbing the back of her palm with his thumb.

_"They killed Derek." __The tone of his voice sounded confused and hurt. Like he still didn't even believe what was going on. He thought that losing his alpha would make him feel different. Like he was detached. For some reason he could still feel that connection nagging at him, like it was screaming to him that it was still there. His mind told him Derek was dead but his instincts told him the opposite. He didn't know what to believe. "He's just...gone."_

_She opened her mouth to say something not unlike an apology or some sort of condolence, but then she shut it because she didn't really know what she was supposed to say. He didn't look like he was going to start crying, but he just looked so much in pain. He was sitting on her bed with his legs hanging off the side and he was fidgeting with his fingers, searching for more words to say. He just couldn't think straight. She slowly walked over to him and straddled his waist, pulling his head into her chest so that she could cradle it with the back of her hand. She caressed the back of his neck with her fingers and he almost felt guilty for the relief that flooded over him. _

_He immediately wrapped his arms tightly around her back, shutting his eyes tightly. He could hear her heart pounding steadily in his ear and it was that sound that delivered comfort to him when he couldn't find it. She leaned down and kissed the top of his head and he sighed deeply, just loving the closeness that he had to her._

_"You know, some people say that it gets worse before it gets better. Maybe this is the part where it starts to get better." She tried to give him at least a little bit of hope to hold onto. He needed it now more than ever. _

"Are we there yet?" The sound of Carmen's voice came in near synchronization with the stop of the bus, and Isaac shook his head at her. She groggily poked her head up and saw that there were cars upon cars lined up in front of them. "Oh, fuck me." She mumbled, burying her head back into his shoulder. She inhaled the scent of clean clothes and Old Spice coming from his skin. It was a scent that was easy to replicate but at the same time impossible to. She'd be able to distinguish a shirt that smelled like Isaac even if she were blindfolded.

"Maybe later." He mused, feeling her laugh and nudge him playfully. He was such a flirt and he knew it. It was natural talent. "Traffic report says that there's a jackknifed tractor trailer a few miles ahead of us. You should probably go back to sleep." But he knew better than anybody that once she was up, she'd be staying up.

"I can just read for a little while I guess." She sat back up, bracing for the pain in her side again. It wasn't there. Maybe Isaac had just ended up taking most of it away. "Well...if I can find my book..." She mumbled, looking in her bag to see if she could find it. She checked the floor underneath her feet but it wasn't there either.

"By the way, this story sucks." He said thoughtfully, furrowing his brow as he opened up to the page of Leo Tolstoy's _Anna Karenina_ where he had left off when she woke up from her nap. "Some of the quotes are nice, but fuck, Carmen...like, how do you read this shit?" It was so profound to the point where it was pointless and annoying. He never really thought to ask her about it but he was never interested enough to do so. Or maybe it was because he didn't want to pry.

_"You know, she was different back then. Before they died she was really, really different." Troy noticed how Isaac spent a longer time looking at old Iver family photos than he did looking at the more current ones. Carmen had forced Isaac to spend some time with her brother while she went to go run an errand, something which he wasn't extremely grateful for. He had almost gotten his chest ripped open by a couple of alphas. He didn't want his girlfriend's brother to do something equally worse. _

_"How?" He turned his head over his shoulder to see Troy standing behind him, staring at the pictures with the same fondness even though he had lived through them. He paced nervously around the living room, picking up one of the books she'd left laying around. _Anna Karenina._ It looked like she'd just started to read it. _

_"Well, she definitely didn't read as much as she does now, that's for sure." Troy chuckled in disbelief, sort of like he was still in shock over it. He noted how Isaac's eyes widened and he realized how funny it was how they were the two most important people in her life but they only seemed to be well-acquainted with one half of her. "Yeah, she picked it up after our parents died. Kind of hard to imagine her without a book now, isn't it?"_

_"You have no idea." Isaac laughed, shaking his head. _

"Yes, _how do you read this shit? _Isaac Lahey thinks aloud, as he reads more of the book." She rolled her eyes, gently elbowing his side. He chucked softly and nodded, knowing that he'd set himself up for that one. "Some people just like reading and some don't. It's not a difficult concept to grasp." She tried to take the book from his hands but he dodged her and continued to read on, poking his tongue into his cheek.

"You can have it back now." He said quietly, suddenly handing it back to her. She thanked him and out of curiosity found herself looking at the page he was on. He had gotten pretty far, but she knew that it was probably because of the fact that he'd just opened up the book and started to read. Her eyes traveled down the page and they stopped on a quote at the bottom. Her breath caught in her throat and she looked over at him, staring right into his big blue eyes. They were slowly filling with tears but he refused to let them flood over.

_"Don't speak of that, don't think of it," He said, turning her hand in his, and trying to draw her attention to him; but still she did not look at him. _

_"Oh, why didn't I die? It would have been better." She said, and silent tears flowed down both her cheeks; but she tried to smile, so as not to wound him. _

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Bones" by Ben Howard._

**I really, really loved writing this chapter because it had a lot of flashbacks in it and a lot of internal monologues too. PLUS WE MADE IT TO 100 REVIEWS, GUYS. WE DID IT. I was especially psyched with the reviews I got on the last chapter and I'm so thankful to have such great readers like you guys. :)**

**I love adding internal conflict and just inner conversations in general because it shows depth to characters that isn't shown on the show or can't actually be shown on film at all. I adore writing Isaac and he really is one of my favorite characters throughout the whole series probably except for Scott or Stiles or basically everybody omg I have no idea. UGH. I DON'T KNOW. I LOVE ALL OF THEM SO MUCH. **

**ALSO SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT: Just so I give you guys a heads-up, do you think that I should be 3B into a different fic? I've noticed that a few other people are doing it and I realized that this fic is gonna end up being hella long so maybe putting 3B into another fic would be a good idea? Thoughts?**


	24. Get Up

**Chapter 23**

_"My head is dizzy now, I thought we'd overcome. We might not make it home tonight. Crawling on the ash, she's pitiful. She lost her sense of light, she has to hold my hand."_

"Shhh, shhh, shhh..." Isaac murmured quietly as he stroked the side of Carmen's face with his fingers, trying as hard as he could to absorb as much of her pain as possible. She was pushed tightly into the side of his body and her fingers were digging into his leg. "You're gonna be okay." There were tears silently streaming down her face because of the pain and he was trying so hard to get her to feel better but now he could barely even make a dent in how she was feeling. He looked behind him at Stiles and flicked his head to signal him to come up a few seats.

"I'll be right back." Stiles sighed, nodding in Scott's direction. He couldn't even move his head to respond. He just blinked to signify that it was okay. "What's up?" He asked Isaac, taking the empty seat across from him. Then he looked over at Carmen and his face descended into concern.

"I don't know what's wrong with her. We have to get her off the bus." He moved his hand over hers yet again and grunted in momentary pain as the veins in the back of his palm turned black. He'd been doing the same thing for the past two hours with absolutely no payoff whatsoever.

"I've been trying. Finstock won't budge." Stiles grit his teeth together, leaning in closer to them so that he could get a better look at Carmen. Her eyes were closed and her cheeks were stained with tears but she wasn't even making a sound. "I didn't know that she was this bad." His eyes came to rest on her hand, which was tightly wrapped around Isaac's thigh. He didn't know what her distress was stemming from, but the look on her face just reminded him so much of Scott. It was like there was some sort of connection between their pain.

"Listen, just try harder to stop the bus. I don't know what else to tell you. She's getting worse." He didn't have time for Stiles to just say that what he was doing wasn't working. He needed something that would get her off the bus and get her to start feeling better. "Stiles, just try harder. Come on." _We're running out of time,_ he wanted to say. He didn't dare let those words roll off his tongue, though. Because saying them out loud would only make them more tangible.

"What do you think I've been doing?" He asked sarcastically, raising one of his eyebrows with a _you're a fucking genius, aren't you? _look on his face. Isaac's cold blue eyes bit into him like ice with a glare that would have probably cause massacres if looks could kill. "Why don't you try to do a little something, huh?"

"I'm kind of busy, in case you haven't noticed." He growled, narrowing his eyes. He was getting really tired of the shit Stiles gave him. He'd done a lot more than just stand around lately. To him, Stiles was just a sidekick. He was the one who'd been helping. He'd gone with Scott to Deucalion. He'd fought. He'd watched his Alpha die. "Go do _something_! I don't care what it is!" He hissed, not expecting his voice to be as loud as it was. A few people turned their heads.

"I just got done yelling at him like fifteen minutes ago! Don't fucking order me around!" Isaac opened his mouth to say something that would have warranted a slap across the face but he felt Carmen's fingernails digging into his thigh.

"Stop it." She mumbled, knitting her eyebrows together in frustration. Her head was pounding with the sound of their voices. "Both of you need to stop." She nudged Isaac's jaw with her forehead and opened her eyes a little bit just to get a look at Stiles. They both sighed in unison but continued to glare at each other. "I'm going to be fine. I'm fine. Stop fighting. I'm fine, I promise." It would just be her luck that her boyfriend and her best friend clashed like that all the time.

"No you're not. Be quiet." Isaac stroked her cheek and shushed her gently, again trying his best to absorb her pain. He saw no change in her demeanor. She was only getting worse. "Just hang in there for a little while longer. We're gonna get you off this thing and we're gonna find out what's wrong with you. I promise." The softness and care in his tone when he spoke to her was incredibly stark in contrast to the spite and annoyance his voice took on whenever he talked to Stiles.

"Jared, just keep your eyes on the horizon. God save us all." They heard Finstock mumble in annoyance at the young teenager who constantly kept moaning with every jolt of the bus. A light bulb went off in Stiles's head.

"The things I do for my friends." He mumbled as he pulled himself up from the seat and went to go sit down next to Jared.

"What's he doing?" Carmen's voice was quiet as she exhaled deeply, trying to counter the sharp pain she was feeling in her side.

"Helping."

* * *

"Scott...where's Scott?" Carmen asked as Isaac pulled her arm over his broad shoulders to help her walk. She tried looking behind her for her friend but everything hurt so much that she couldn't move her neck. The pain was now unbearable and it was like somebody had taken a branding iron to the skin along her ribcage.

"He's coming off the bus. Calm down for like five seconds." She was usually a lot easier to carry but the fact that she had so much dead weight on her was making it so much more difficult. He saw Stiles and Allison pulling Scott into the bathroom and he followed them in, hoping that there was something they'd all be able to do.

"What's wrong with you?" Scott mumbled as Isaac set Carmen down next to him. He reached over for her hand and squeezed it as tightly as he could, which wasn't very much at all.

"Maybe I'm just getting my period." She said under her breath as she cringed, trying to prop herself up against the tile in the bathroom. He let out a pained laugh, forcing the ends of his lips into an incredibly small smile. Allison lifted up Scott's shirt and gasped in, looking at the scratch marks on the side of his body that were leaking blood of different colors. "Fuck, that looks bad."

"I bet it feels worse." Scott didn't even look down at his wounds. His eyes were closed as he held his head up against the wall behind him.

"I think it does." She cringed, feeling pain in the same exact place his wound was. She didn't know what it was but she could tell that there was something definitely wrong. She could feel what he was going through. "Isaac, go stall Finstock. Keep the bus here." She opened her eyes and looked up at him, his ice-colored orbs reflecting the image of her face back into her eyes.

"I'm not leaving you guys." He said firmly, kneeling down closer to the two people he cared about most in the world. They both turned their heads to look at him and he didn't need them to open their mouths to tell him again that he needed to leave.

"We'll be fine." Scott swallowed a lump in his throat, slumping himself up against the sink. He was so, so tired. If he could just sleep for five minutes he swore he'd be back to normal again. He swore that when he opened his eyes he'd be all healed up and ready to go. He and Carmen started to fade in and out of consciousness and all they could hear were snippets of the words their friends were saying. They could barely process the distinctness of the voices but they could make out the words.

"You know, maybe it's psychological."

"Which one?"

"Maybe both of them. Carmen's ability could just be like...absorbing Scott's pain or something."

"But that doesn't make any sense. She's barely been around him. She's been with me the whole day."

"You know, maybe that's why when you tried to take her pain away it didn't work. Because it was coming from Scott the whole time."

"Well that seems like a pretty shitty thing for Mother Nature to do."

"Tell Isaac to leave." Carmen said almost incoherently, barely even moving her lips to get the sound out. She didn't want him to see her like this. Not when she was this weak. Not when he had tried his best to help her and it had ended up resulting in nothing. Isaac respected her wishes and hunched his body forward, slowly making his way out of the bathroom to wait outside.

"I've seen him heal from worse than this. What if...what if it's already too late for the both of them?"

"Allison, don't say that!"

"Then what are we supposed to do?"

"Stitch him up and hope it fixes her too."

* * *

_"No...come on, we gotta go..." Isaac mumbled, tossing his head from side-to-side as went through the motions of a nightmare. He'd slept for nearly the entire day, only once waking up to go to the bathroom. He hadn't even eaten. "Scott, don't...!" His sweaty hand slid over Carmen's forearm and he dug into her skin with his fingernails, searching for some sort of security. _

_She gasped in sharply and tried to pry his hand off her but his nails were already in so deep that they were starting to draw blood. "Isaac, it's just a bad dream." She said calmly, gently shaking his shoulders. His entire body was slick in a layer of sweat and his long legs were getting tangled up in the sheets. "Isaac, wake up. Come on." Now he was starting to worry her. _

_"DEREK, NO!" He yelled, shooting upwards. His chest was heaving in and out violently and for a few moments he'd forgotten where he was. He looked around at his surroundings and his body immediately relaxed when he realized that he wasn't fighting the Alpha Pack anymore. He turned to Carmen and opened his mouth to apologize when he saw her more concentrated on applying pressure to her arm. Four small crescent-shaped cuts were dripping a little bit of blood against her pale skin and he looked to see his own hand with blood underneath his fingernails. He stopped breathing and he immediately turned his head toward her. His eyes were starting to fill with tears of apology. "I didn't mean to—"_

_"Isaac, it's fine." She made sure to cut him off before he finished his thought._

_"Carmen, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't know that I was...I didn't mean to do that. I'm so, so sorry..." His voice was filled with sheer panic and he wanted to reach out to touch her arm but he immediately pulled himself back in fear of hurting her again. His hands were starting to shake. It was like what happened in the janitor's closet with Allison all over again._

_"I'm fine, really. It's okay. I promise."_

_"Oh God, you're bleeding! I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry...you're bleeding...I hurt you..." He was starting to hyperventilate and he wanted so badly to help her but he felt like she was a porcelain doll and he was a clumsy child. He'd hurt her even if it was completely unintended.  
_

_"Isaac!" She said sharply, making him clamp his mouth shut and look at her with his huge blue eyes. "You were only having a bad dream. It's okay. It's not your fault. It's just a couple of scratches." She said slowly, making sure that the words sank into him. He nodded and swallowed the hard lump in his throat, wiping his sweaty palms on her blue comforter._

_"Only a bad dream." He repeated, running his hand through his damp hair. He'd had a lot of bad dreams. Some worse than others. The only thing he was really sure of was that he rarely used the word "only" when describing them. _

"Jesus, you're getting fat." Carmen mumbled under her breath as she helped Allison carry Scott out of the bathroom. All three of them cracked a smile and he even mustered a laugh. For the tremendous amount of pain she had been in not even twenty minutes ago she felt like she'd just woken up from a really long nap. Like she was rejuvenated.

"Guys, he just went after him. I told him about what was happening and he just lost it." Stiles ran up to them, pointing in the direction of the bus where a crowd of people had gathered. "I mean I tried to tell him that you were both gonna be fine but he just—"

"Boyd?" Scott asked in a frantic voice, knowing that he had been the more volatile of Derek's betas. He struggled to get to his feet as he pulled his arms away from Carmen and Allison.

_"How are they?" Isaac bit down on his fingernails as he saw Stiles exit the bathroom. He had been told to stall Finstock with Lydia to make sure the bus didn't leave but he just couldn't process his thoughts knowing that Carmen and Scott were in that much pain. "Did you figure out what was wrong with her?"_

_"She's um...she's absorbing Scott's pain. So as long as Scott's hurt from the Alphas then she's gonna hurt too." He looked down at his feet, again feeling awkward that he had to talk to Isaac again. "And Scott won't let himself heal because he thinks Derek dying is his fault. It's...it's killing both of them."_

_"What?" Isaac's voice cracked as soon as those last words escaped Stiles's lips. His body suddenly flooded with absolute rage and he started breathing heavily, grinding his teeth together. _

_"Allison's trying to stitch Scott up so that he can maybe just think that he's healing. We don't know if it'll work but it's worth a shot." _

_"I'm going to fucking murder him!" Isaac's eyes narrowed in on Ethan, who was laughing at something Danny had just said. He tightened his fists and rolled his shoulders back, bracing himself for what he was about to do. He'd do it to protect them. He'd do it for revenge. He'd do it just to get his anger out. _

_"Wait, wha—ISAAC!"_

"ISAAC!" Scott and Carmen both screamed at him, suddenly making him pause his attack on Ethan. People could have sworn that their voices were coming from the same exact person. Isaac stared at the ground dumbfoundedly for a few seconds before slowly turning his head to look at the two who had just called his name.

The two who had just anchored him.

He stood at full height and even though he towered over both Scott and Carmen, he still thought he was nothing short of a child compared to them. His eyes started at their feet and then they rose to see that their hands were interlocked. It hadn't been intentional...it had just _happened_. It was like their hands found each other on their own. For stability. The young beta guiltily met their disappointed gazes with reluctance. His jaw clenched and he swallowed in anticipation for punishment. He was used to it.

"Oh God, Isaac...your hand." Carmen mumbled quietly, gently straightening his fingers out with her own. His knuckles were bloodied—a mix of Ethan's and his own. His bruised skin was already turning spotty as it began to heal but that didn't detract from the fact that he had hit somebody so hard that he ended up breaking his hand because of it. "You shouldn't have hit him." She shook her head, knitting her brow together.

"Sorry." He replied cheekily, quickly leaning down to kiss her nose. He couldn't mask the grin on his face. He looked up at Scott with nothing but sheer joy in his eyes. He was so happy that they were okay. He didn't have time to be upset about anything.

* * *

This chapter's song was "Get Up" by Barcelona.

**This chapter's been a long time coming! Junior year is definitely just as much work as everybody keeps telling me it is so I'm gonna try my best to get updates in maybe twice a week. If not, I'll try for a weekly thing. Who knows hahaha. It just all depends on how much time I have and how much homework I get. Next chapter I'm going to close out Frayed and start Motel California. :)**


	25. A Little Death

_Author's note: ngl guys it gets a little smutty at the end sORRY ABOUT THAT_

**Chapter 24**

_"Touch me, yeah. I want you to touch me there. Make me feel like I am breathing, feel like I am human."_

"Hey, you're gonna ruin your eyes." Isaac gently took the book from Carmen's hands, making sure to mark her page before he shut it. Darkness was quickly enveloping the sky and she had been pressed against the window to try and see if she could find more light for reading. "Aren't you tired?"

"Not at all." She replied quietly, gingerly rubbing her side. It was so strange how the pain had felt like something was burning into her body even though everything looked completely fine. And now she couldn't feel a thing. She didn't like it. "Are we stopping soon?" There was obviously no way that the meet was still on for the scheduled time.

"Yeah, Coach said that we'd just be at a hotel for the night." His large hand eased onto her thigh and he gave her a devilish half-smile. She laughed and shook her head, rolling her eyes. "What?"

"Nothing." He knew exactly what she was talking about. She tried to reach over him to claim her book but he held it just out of her grasp and tucked it safely into his duffel bag. "How's Scotty-boy holding up?" She glanced over her shoulder to see his head dropped onto Allison's shoulder. She was pretending to not notice but the ghost of a smile was playing on her lips.

"Alright, everybody off the bus!" Finstock called from the front as the vehicle came to a stop in front of the neon lights of an old motel. Carmen glanced out the window and saw the words _Glen Capri _in cheesy-looking script outfitted by bright blue lighting. She and Isaac shared one single glance of uncertainty, but it had left as soon as it had come. Isaac shouldered the weight of his bag and his girlfriend's before letting her pass in front of him to get off the bus.

He made sure to growl at Ethan.

"So, you're with me right?" Isaac asked her when they saw the room keys in Finstock's hand. She looked at him and raised one of her eyebrows, shaking her head. "Oh, come on! Why not?" He tried to give her a pout that would usually win her over but this time it refused to work.

"You should bunk with Boyd. I'll just go stay with Allison and Lydia." She didn't want to detract from his sleep and she didn't want to annoy Boyd either. She didn't feel like she'd get tired at all during the night. He bat his long eyelashes at her yet again, but she refused to yield. "I'll come and visit." She rolled her eyes, making his lips spread into a wide grin.

"Well what _kind_ of visit?" He nudged her gently, snaking his long arms around her waist. She tried to wriggle out of his grip but it was more half-hearted than anything else.

"And I'll have no sexual perversions perpetrated by you little deviants!" Isaac choked on the breath he had in his throat and nervously rolled back his shoulders, looking from side-to-side to make sure that nobody was staring directly at him. Stiles was. "Keep your dirty little hands to your dirty little selves!"

"I have condoms in my bag." He leaned down and whispered into Carmen's ear, making her elbow him in the stomach. He cringed in order to pretend like it had actually hurt. Her face turned pink and she tried her best to act like she hadn't heard him. This place already seemed too creepy to sleep in, let alone have sex in.

"LAHEY! Hands where I can see them!" Finstock's voice boomed when he saw Isaac's hand resting on his girlfriend's ass. He shook his head and felt like slapping himself across the face. He knew that it was going to be a long night. "Degenerates." He mumbled under his breath, rolling his eyes.

* * *

**Isaac -** BOYD SAID HE WANTED TO GO OUT FOR A WHILE WE'RE CLEAR WE'RE CLEAR WE'RE CLEAR

**Carmen -** You're so embarrassing can you stop

**Isaac -** I'll put the sign on the door ;)

**Carmen -** omg Isaac come on

**Isaac -** You're making me sad :(

**Carmen -** Stop using those faces

**Isaac -** I'm thinking about you naked :)

**Carmen -** ISAAC

"Hey-o, Carm where you off to?" Stiles said casually as he saw her walking down the hallway from the room she shared with Lydia and Allison. She was clad in a pair of black shorts and a long-sleeved light gray t-shirt. He could just barely see some of her green bra showing underneath it. He tried not to stare.

"I was just gonna go and see Isaac for a little bit." Of course. He hadn't really expected a different answer. "What about you?" She tapped her foot, swaying from side-to-side. She was beginning to get ants in her pants.

"I was just gonna go get a snack or something." He pointed down the stairs towards the vending machine. Carmen nodded quickly and scampered off to Isaac's room, leaving Stiles to stand by himself and shake his head.

"Isa—" He had the door open before she'd even finished knocking. He quickly peered outside to see if anybody was coming and he pulled her inside the room when the coast was clear. "You're a little too eager." She laughed against his mouth when he pushed her up against the wall.

"Did anybody see you on the way here?" He didn't want somebody to go running to Finstock to tell him that there was anything going on otherwise that would just be more stress to deal with. She didn't understand what he was so freaked out about.

"I ran into Stiles, but—" He pulled his mouth off hers the second he'd heard that name. He nervously cleared his throat and went to go sit on the bed. "What's your problem with him?" She groaned frustratedly, placing her hands on her hips. She'd had enough of their annoying arguments and the daggers they pointed at each other with their eyes. They were acting like children fighting over a toy.

"I don't have a problem with him." Isaac grit his teeth, looking down at his feet. He felt so painfully _stupid_ for being so jealous. He knew that he shouldn't have been. But it wasn't just the romantic aspect that made him so upset. It was just his sheer possessiveness. She was _his _and he didn't need anybody else to feel that way. Not Scott, not Stiles. Just him. Only him.

"Stop lying to me." She picked at her fingernails, shifting back and forth on her toes. Just those words gave her a terrible taste in her mouth. His ears twitched and he looked up at her with blue eyes that reflected the yellowed light from the lamp on the nightstand. "He's my best friend, Isaac. You can't just—" She began to stutter but he had already cut her off before she could say anything tangible.

"There's no rule against me not liking him. We never set any rules." He argued, trying to keep the tone of his voice even. He felt like the whole planet would be able to hear him if he ever raised his voice to her. "Look, I'm not the craziest about him, alright? I don't really feel the earth-quaking vibes coming off the Stiles Express that everybody seems to have programmed into their brains." He rolled his eyes, making her narrow hers at him.

"You're an asshole." She crossed her arms over her head and shook her head. She knew that he only made jokes to get out of an uncomfortable situation. It was a no-brainer. She just wished that he'd stop doing it so often. "There is absolutely no reason for you and him to not be friends. It's annoying me and it's already going to put Scott into a difficult position."

Isaac would be lying if he said that he wouldn't be content unless there was a little conflict. He loved instigating things. Now that people cared about him he wanted a little something more. He wanted them to fight over him. He wanted to be wanted. He wanted to be needed. He wanted to feel the satisfaction of being first-choice. That wasn't a crime. That was just him being human. "Well, you know that I'm at least good at a few things. Apparently being an asshole is one of them." He bit back sarcastically, making her tighten her jaw.

"Don't make me try to pick one of you." She could tell exactly what he was doing and she didn't like it at all. He rose to his feet and she suddenly felt far smaller than just a few moments ago. Sometimes it was easy to forget how broad-shouldered he was. "There's nothing for you to be jealous about." She said calmly, watching as his hand flexed at his side before he raised his palm to rest on her cheek.

"Let's just say that I had to make you pick." He mused, getting that incredibly cocky smirk on his face that she loved and hated with every fiber of her body. "Hypothetically, of course. Don't worry, sweetheart." His voice sent chills up her spine and his other hand pushed against the small of her back, arching her body into his. She had no idea what had gotten into him.

"You know I'm not going to answer that." Her voice was hoarse as his lips brushed back and forth against her own, trying to lull her into some sort of hypnotic state. He had to have learned how to do that from _somewhere. _There was no way it was purely natural talent. She raised her hands to push them against his chest to get some more breathing room but he laughed and shook his head. He wasn't going to let her out of his grip until she answered him. Somehow she wasn't upset about it at all. There was just something about his hands that was so inviting to her.

"Oh come on, who are you going to pick?" He taunted her with the court jester grin playing on his pink lips. His perfect, perfect lips. He hadn't even kissed her yet and her head was about to explode. There was something in his eyes that she caught at the last second...some sort of haze. A dark, dark haze. Like he wasn't himself. "The best friend who you watch sci-fi movies with...?" He pouted at her, batting his long eyelashes.

"Isaac..." There wasn't another word that her mouth could form. Not when he had her trapped in his gaze. Not when he was pushing his hand up and under her shirt. Not when she felt his hand underneath her bra, squeezing around her breast. There was some part of him that absolutely loved being a control freak. Having power when he knew that he had been kept powerless for so long.

"...Or the boyfriend who you're fucking?" He snarled, pushing her up against the wall. She gasped out and barely had time to take another breath in as he shoved his tongue past her lips and into her mouth. Something about him was so different. She had no idea what it was and she couldn't even tell whether or not she liked it. But something was going on. "Don't make me angry..." He singsonged sweetly, growing bored of having his hand under her shirt.

She felt his fingernails dragging along the skin of her flat stomach as they slowly trailed down to the waistband of her shorts with only one objective in mind. "Isaac, no." She grabbed onto his wrist, making a terribly weak attempt at stopping him. And she knew that she could have made him stop if she wanted to. But she didn't. Deep down inside of her she hated to admit that there was some part of her that wanted him when he was like this. When he was aggressive. Scary. _Dominant. _

"Isaac, _yes._" He growled, barring his white teeth at her. He wouldn't let go of control now. He refused to. His fingers crept under her waistband and she almost choked to death on the air in her throat as she felt him getting closer to his destination. He hooked his fingertips under the elastic of her underwear. He pulled them down _just enough _to allow himself all the space he needed. That bastard.

"Don't make me say it," She breathed out as he sucked a dark bruise into her neck, making her moan out and arch her body farther into his. Her fingernails were digging into the skin on the back of his neck and he loved it. His body was on fire. "Don't..." She bit down on her lip in sheer ecstasy when she felt his warm fingertips rubbing against the folds of her nether region. There were so many things about him that made her so angry and so frustrated. How he knew what made her tick. What turned her on and got her off. He may have not known everything about her past but memories were irrelevant to him at the given moment. He knew everything about how her body worked and it was all that mattered.

"I know you'd pick me anyways." She felt his tongue flick around her earlobe and her heart stopped. She didn't even have time to think of an actual answer because she'd been putting it off for so long. What really would have happened if she'd had to pick? her brain was short-circuiting. She didn't have time to process actual thoughts. "You better apologize for calling me an asshole." He laughed quietly against her ear as he pushed two of his long fingers into her entrance, making her cry out his name.

He was most definitely under the influence of someone or some_thing _but she didn't dare object.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "A Little Death" by the Neighbourhood. _

**eh ehe eh eeh ehe yeeeeaaaahhhhh sorry about the smut guys. I WARNED YOU OKAY I'VE NEVER REALLY WRITTEN SMUT BEFORE SORRY IF IT'S BAD UGH AT LEAST YOU CAN SAY IT WAS IMPORTANT TO THE STORY**

**and sorry I haven't updated in a million years omg well at least on the bright side with the way things are going now I won't have to take a hiatus between 3A and 3B? Also I've decided that 3B is going to be in a different fic and I already made the poster for it because I'm a nerd. Sigh. **


	26. Wide Eyes

**Chapter 25**

_"Oh, some evil spirit. Oh some evil this way comes. They told me how they fear it, now they're placing it on their tongues."_

"What time is it?" Carmen mumbled groggily as her eyes blinked open. She only saw darkness in front of her face. Darkness that was steadily rising and steadily falling. Darkness with a heartbeat. Isaac's chest. The moment he realized that she was awake he tightened his arms around her, not wanting her to leave. "Hello?" Maybe if he just pretended to sleep she'd feel bad for wanting to leave. "Isaac, I know you're awake."

"Time is mostly a relative thing." He quoted it straight from physics class. That cheeseball. She squirmed in his strong grip and poked her head up, looking at the bedside clock. It was almost 11:30. She immediately scrambled up and rushed to collect her clothes, yanking her underwear over her legs and clasping her bra behind her back. "Nooooo!" He whined, kicking his legs around under the sheets. The more clothes she put on the more serious about leaving the room she became. He didn't like that.

"Boyd still not back yet?" She glanced over at the other bed, noting that it was completely immaculate. Nobody had even touched it. She pulled her shirt over her head and found her shorts underneath the bed frame. He followed her every movement with his eyes and he didn't look too pleased to be doing it.

"I'm naked. I don't want to talk about Boyd." Isaac pouted, sitting up in the bed with the covers concealing his bare lower half. "Do you really have to go?" Truth be told he really wasn't looking forward to sleeping alone in a place that was so goddamn creepy. It was unsettling.

"Allison and Lydia are probably looking for me and I don't want Finstock to do any spontaneous room checks." He raised one of his eyebrows and cocked his head to the side giving her a _yeah, you're really making me fall for that trick, dumbass _look that made her think about why he and Stiles weren't friends. Their senses of humor were obviously alike. They both cared about her. They both cared about Scott. It seemed to her like they had a lot of common ground. "You know it's not that I don't want to stay with you."

He sighed and rolled his eyes, leaning over the side of the bed to pick his boxers off the ground. He slipped them on before flipping the covers off and walking over toward her. "It's cold. You made me get out of bed." He pulled her body into his chest, shutting his eyes tightly. "Don't leave." He stated plainly, his voice taking on the innocent quality of a child.

"I'm just gonna be down the hall. I'm not going off to war." She laughed, squeezing his arm reassuringly. "You'll be fine, Isaac." She didn't know what he was so freaked out about anyways. He didn't need her as a security blanket and if she thought of herself that way then she knew he'd get insulted. He liked showing that he could be on his own just as much as she did.

"I love you." He mumbled with his brow knit in concentration as he traced his fingertips over her face. That almost made her stay. He gently brushed some stray strands of hair from her face and she laughed quietly at how calculated his movements were. He was almost afraid to be impulsive around her. He was scared he'd do something to hurt her.

"I love you too." She nodded, giving him a small smile. "I'll see you in the morning, okay?" He looked like he was about to make a last-resort inquiry for her to stay with him but he thought against it. She didn't look like she was in the mood for that. He reluctantly opened the door and let her walk out of the room, sighing deeply as he watched her walk down the hallway.

* * *

"The last time I saw Scott act like that was during the full moon." Allison said, pacing around the room. Carmen awkwardly scratched the back of her neck and Stiles looked over at her with a curiously raised eyebrow and a smirk on his face. He definitely knew something. "You went to go see Isaac. Was he like that too?" Stiles immediately pulled his lips into his mouth to stifle a laugh and Carmen yanked the neckline of her shirt up to cover her face out of shame.

"Don't give me that look." If Carmen was close enough to him she would have elbowed him in the stomach.

"What is it?" Lydia looked back and forth between them. Their mental communication was something that confused everybody. It was like there was some sort of wavelength that only their brains could tap into.

"You guys are like rabbits, Jesus Christ." Stiles rolled his eyes and chuckled, enjoying how much his friend was getting embarrassed. Rightfully so. _"Unnnhhh, Isaaaaccccc! Unnnnnhhh, don't stop! Isaaaaaaac, pleeeeeaaaassseeee!"_ He mimicked her voice, now obviously forcing her to get up and smack him right in the gut.

"I don't sound like that! Shut the hell up!" She growled, threatening to punch him again. Allison and Lydia were jut watching the two of them bicker, wishing that they had popcorn to pass the time. "You're so annoying!" They got into a miniature slapping fight, with Stiles mostly going on the defensive. He wasn't in the mood to hit her back.

"I guess that answers my question." Allison tried to stifle a giggle so as to not get Carmen mad at her too. "But there was just something about Scott that was like...aggressive, you know?" She sounded uneasy as she revealed more of the story, making Carmen's breath get caught in her throat. "What?"

"Well, I'm not gonna give you guys details...but like, I know what you're talking about." She stopped hitting Stiles and crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly feeling completely exposed. She just assumed that he was just lonely. That he wanted more from her. Not that he was possessed or something. That was the farthest thing from her mind.

_"Mine, mine, mine..." Isaac growled as he pushed her slim body into the mattress, yanking her shirt over her head. He muffled the words leaving his mouth as he kissed roughly down her bare skin, his teeth grazing her stomach. He scratched at the skin on her hips as he pulled her shorts down. He glanced up at her and there was some sort of crazed look in his eyes that she couldn't recognize. She thought it was just a trick of the light. "You smell so good..." He mumbled against her stomach as he started to bite on her soft flesh, making her gasp in._

_"Isaac, come on." She glanced down at her chest and noticed the odd amount of bruises that littered it. He never left that many. Never. "Hey, calm down." She laughed quietly, thinking that he was just playing around with her. Then his fingernails dug into her hipbones. Hard._

_"I want you so much..." He leaned up and kissed her on the mouth, this time biting on her lower lip as he pulled her underwear down around her ankles. His lips left hers and he went at her neck, nearly devouring her this time. She could feel his teeth against her flesh and she was afraid that he'd draw blood if he bit any harder._

_"Isaac!" She called his name, suddenly breaking him out of whatever trance he was in. He looked up at her with confusion in his bright blue eyes and at once she felt bad for stopping him. He looked like he had no idea what he had been doing. "Just calm down a bit, okay?" He nodded wordlessly and went back to work, this time gentler than before. But she still felt uncomfortable. Slightly scared, even. Something that she never felt when she was around him._

"Okay, I don't know if I should vomit or kick the shit out of Isaac." Stiles mumbled, shaking his head. She knew that he'd end up doing neither. But it was the thought that counted.

"It wasn't his fault." Then who's fault was it supposed to be, exactly? There was a part of her that refused to believe there was a possibility that Isaac, _sweet, endearing, quiet, innocent Isaac, _would ever have the intent to purposely hurt her. That just wasn't an option. "But whatever's going on with him, it's gotta be the same thing that's going on with Boyd and Scott."

Stiles froze. It was like something had just clicked in his mind. "Wait, Issac, Boyd, and Scott..." He repeated their names over and over again, like he was searching for some sort of hidden meaning. "There's three of them."

"Allison, and you said the number at the desk went up by three?" The tension was quickly thickening in the room and everything was all beginning to make sense. Terrible, terrible sense.

The huntress nodded. "Wait...like...three sacrifices?" That tension turned into panic.

"What if this time it's three werewolves?" Stiles said, his ears suddenly growing attentive as he heard Carmen choke on her own breath. He moved to put his hand on her shoulder but she waved him off. She started mumbling to herself and shaking her head, like there was a separate panic rising in her chest. Something worse than everybody else. "Carm, hey...look at me, look at me." He leaned down so that they were eye level and he moved her face with his hand to get her to look into his eyes.

Stiles didn't need werewolf senses to hear her heartbeat now. "Wait...what if this is just like back at the rest stop with Scott?" Lydia was somehow the only one who was able to think with a clear head at that moment. "When she felt his pain but nothing was there? Maybe it's part of her ability, you know? She feels what he's going through."

"But why him? Why Scott?" Allison asked, breaking the momentary trance she'd been in. She was trying to figure out a plan. Something that would work. Something that would save more people from dying.

Stiles's body stood frozen in place.

_"THEY SEE ME! THEY'RE HERE!" He screamed, making tears stream down her face. Her hands were shaking and she felt the most incredible pressure in the world bearing down on her chest. It was like they were connected to each other in that very moment. His pain was her pain. She felt every second of it, every ounce of fear in his blood spilled into her own, and every sense of security she had ever felt was gone._

_"ISAAC, TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE!" Derek yelled at him, grabbing onto his shoulder. Carmen started to hyperventilate. Isaac's heart rate skyrocketed. It wasn't just like he was the one projecting his emotions onto her, he was projecting his physical state onto her as well._

He couldn't believe that he hadn't made the connection before. It was there. It was always there and he had just totally missed it.

_"Carmen, do something! Carmen!" Stiles yelled at her, seeing how all the color had just vanished from her face as she held her hands above Isaac's squirming body, trying to stop herself from shaking. It was like she was completely paralyzed. "Carmen, for the love of God just do something!"_

"It's the werewolves." His voice was quiet but it was definitely firm. "Whatever's happening to Scott...to Isaac...it's affecting her. It's projecting onto her." It was exactly what Deaton had told him. Exactly what Peter had told him. How could he have been so stupid?

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Wide Eyes" by Local Natives._

**Hooooollllly cooooowwwww it's been ages since I've last updated. Sorry about that guys. For some reason this chapter just gave me a ton of writer's block but next chapter is going to flow pretty easily because it's going to be a flashback/meta story that I've been thinking about for a LOOOOONG time.**


	27. Psychotic Girl

**Chapter 26**

_"I heard you threw your man around, pick him up just to let him down. It's a shame, baby, but I always knew just the way you're gonna do, oh."_

"It's a terrible idea." A younger Peter Hale scoffed, looking over at a girl with dark brown hair. He wasn't as young as he'd been when he used his spirit to tempt Lydia into submission. He looked weary already. Like there was a terrible guilt settling into his eyes that would never leave. "Ren, don't do it."

She turned to face him and she pierced him with her bright green eyes. "You know Talia has no purpose for me in her pack. She's told me before. She can do without me. She has Danielle." She scoffed, tossing her long hair over her shoulder. He watched her intently, paying close attention to the way her heart beat steadily like a drum and the way her fingers curled by her sides. Ren never liked Danielle that much. There was always an air of competition around them. Ren obviously thought she was better. Better Alpha human. Better eochair potential. Better for the Hale Pack. _Better for Peter_.

But not that Ren ever had any competition when it came to winning him over anyways.

"And Deucalion needs me. He's building a pack, Peter. The greatest pack in the history of packs—an Alpha Pack." The grin on her face was glittering and he couldn't help but be mystified by it.

Maybe that was because of her ability.

Maybe it was for another reason. Because he was in love with her.

"It's not worth it. You're a human." After Deucalion had lost his eyesight he'd been...different. Like he'd completely lost his sense of reason but at the same time gained an entirely new perspective on the world that didn't seem crazy in the slightest. Deluded logic.

"An _Alpha_ human." She corrected him, skipping around him in a circle like some sort of fairy with wings. She was so content with herself...so pleased to be valued at such a high price. That's why she fit in with Peter so well. She loved to manipulate. And she loved to be important. He couldn't help but be enchanted by the lackadaisical way she went about life and how it couldn't be farther than what he'd actually seen her do. He'd been around to witness her using her ability to cheat people. To lie. To steal. To purposely cause pain. She thought it was fun. A game to play to pass the time.

He almost admired her for it. "He doesn't even have an emissary yet." He insisted, following closely behind her as she continued her walk through the woods. "How do you know he's even being serious about this? An Alpha Pack? I mean, the idea on paper is good but how many Alphas do you think are willing to kill their own packs?"

"They'd obviously need persuasion." She rolled her eyes, looking down at her fingernails absentmindedly. "God, Peter. You underestimate me." Of course that's what they'd use her for. To bring in new members without a fight. To find a candidate and then whisper into their ear like a snake. To make them kill their own. To burn the bonds that were stronger than blood and family.

"What would you be getting out of it?" He pressed on for more answers, realizing that the more she talked about it the more he bought into it.

"Well obviously I'd be getting a pack to finally attach myself to. I thought I'd go my whole life without actually settling down." She sighed, her voice taking on lighthearted tone. She was right. Her ability made her too important to the packs for her to have gone unnoticed for so long. Werewolves always appreciated the Alpha humans with the telekinetic abilities. The ones who could form thoughts in the minds of others, the ones who could force people to think the way they wanted them to, or the ones who could read minds.

Since the bond between Druids and werewolves was brought to light, Alpha humans came soon after. At first they were trained as alternates to the emissaries, the werewolves thinking that maybe one would be sufficient for a good pack until they realized that the Alpha humans they wanted were only good for one thing. And that was manipulation.

"But what else can he give you? You know how it goes when people like you go into packs. You know they can chain you up." Figuratively speaking, of course. He knew that Deucalion wouldn't stand for her reckless approach to things, no matter how raw and expansive her power was. He'd discipline her abilities until it would be enough to kill her. You can't tie down a bird and expect it to do your bidding. It has to fly in order to live. "You're not going to listen to him."

"Peter, I'm going with him. Nothing you say is going to stop me from doing it. This is what I want." She insisted, suddenly becoming serious. And he believed her. "And besides, I know self-control. You just haven't seen me exercise it."

He never would.

* * *

"IT WON'T MOVE!" Carmen and Lydia screamed as they along with Stiles tried to pull the safe off Boyd's chest. Not even all three of them together would be able to pick it up. It was impossible.

"Carm, do something! See if you can take him out of it!" Stiles shook her shoulder, motioning over to Boyd's face.

"Stiles, I don't think I c—"

"TRY IT!" His voice rang in her ears and the desperation in it was more than evident. She let go of the safe and walked over to the side of the tub where Boyd's face was and she took in a deep breath before sinking her hands in underneath the water.

_Boyd, come on. Boyd. Get out of it. You're stronger than this. I know you are. _

She willed herself to wake him up. To get him out of whatever trance he was in. She begged him. She pleaded. But whatever she tried to do, it was like her mind was always on something else. She was continually distracted. You didn't need to be very smart to figure out that Isaac was the only thing she could think about. All she wanted to do was make sure he was safe.

She couldn't lose him. Not now.

Not ever.

"Stiles, there are road flares on the bus!" Lydia said, finally breaking any amount of concentration Carmen had given to Boyd. "They have their own oxidizers! They can burn underwater!" She was already to her feet, shoving Stiles out of the bathroom so that he could run to the school bus that was parked right outside the hotel.

She and Carmen had stepped out of a bathroom in order to focus on a plan while Stiles was gone, but they both had their minds racing in other directions. Scott and Isaac. Isaac and Scott. Nobody knew where they were. Nobody knew if they were alive or dead. But Carmen thought she'd feel something. That's what she thought would happen if somebody you were close to ended up dying. You could feel them go. You could feel the connection being severed.

"Carmen, I hear something." Lydia said quietly, slowly walking towards one of the beds. It sounded like somebody was..._crying. _Somehow that noise of somebody in a panic was burned into Carmen's brain. She heard it ringing in her ears. She couldn't forget it even if she wanted to. "Under...the bed..." She bent down and slowly started to pull the bed's dust ruffle up with a trembling hand.

_"No, no...please...! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." Isaac thrashed around in the covers of his new bed at Scott's house, immediately rousing Carmen who had fallen asleep on a chair in the corner of the room. He'd asked her to cuddle with him. She told him five more minutes of reading. He fell asleep before she did. "I won't do it again, I won't do it!" He wailed again and again, beginning to hyperventilate. _

_A drowsy Scott came into the room, throwing a panicked glance over at the young redhead. She'd had experience with Isaac's nightmares, but Scott didn't. He wanted to watch what she did so that he could learn to do it the next time anything happened. "Ise, wake up." Her voice was soft and gentle and she nudged his shoulder. "Come on, baby. You're fine." He'd told her that his mother used to wake him up from nightmares like that when he was a little kid. And then she died. She was gone and then Camden was too. Then his dad. Then Erica. Then Derek. He was losing everybody he cared about one by one. _

_"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!" His Adam's apple refused to stop bobbing up and down and the white t-shirt he was wearing was completely soaked through with sweat. He whimpered and let out a few cries of pain, each of them making Carmen cringe as they rang through her ears. _

_"It's just a bad dream! Isaac, wake up!" Her voice was more firm this time, albeit still even-toned. She placed her hand on the top of his head and stroked his dark hair, continuing her method of gentleness. Scott didn't think he would have the patience for that. Within a few seconds, Isaac's blue eyes opened and he was back into the world of reality once again._

The bright red sparks of the emergency flare glowed against Isaac's pale and sweaty skin and there was a change in his eyes. Not like the fear had been sucked out...but like he was seeing clearly for the first time in a little while. Like the fog had cleared. He scrambled out from underneath the bed and started to hyperventilate as he clung onto Carmen's body with all of his strength. She felt his nails digging into her sides as he held her tightly, but she didn't care at all. Just as long as he was okay. Just as long as she didn't lose him.

He buried his face into her neck and even though she could feel his sweat against her skin, his face was cold. He was still shaking. His breathing was ragged and uneven. Whatever he had seen or whatever the Darach had _wanted _him to see had terrified him. It had zapped the warmth out of his body. She could feel his head beating nearly out of his chest. "We have to go find Scott." Stiles looked into Carmen's stark blue eyes with a thin-lipped expression on his features.

She opened her mouth like she was going to say something then she shut it again. Isaac only squeezed her tighter. "I can't leave him, Stiles. Not like this. He needs me." She stroked the hair on the back of his head and tried her best to calm him down but it was pointless. He'd calm down on his own time. When his body recovered.

She knew that Scott was in danger. And she loved Scott like he was her own brother. It felt like her heart was being ripped into shreds and all she wanted was to be in two places at once. "Allison already has a head start. We can find her. Stay here." Lydia tugged on Stiles's sleeve and pulled him out of the room as he stared blankly at his best friend. He knew what Isaac meant to her. She knew what Scott meant to him. The two of them just belonged in different places right then and there.

"I...t-the...fr-freez-zer, t-t-he f-fr-freezer," Isaac's firm voice was now being choked out of his throat almost as if he were being strangled. "I was in it, it was there...I was in there again, n-no, not again, not again..." He rocked back and forth, pulling her with him. She shut her eyes tightly and tried her best to not cry but it was absolutely no use. She couldn't have imagined what he had been through. She wanted so badly to be able to relate...to be able to help him somehow. But it would always be out of her reach.

"Shhh, shhh...it wasn't real, Isaac. It was just in your head. You're safe now. I promise." She pressed her lips to to crown of his head and he could feel her tears on his scalp. His ear was pressed against her collarbone and he heard the echo of her skyrocketing heartbeat in his head. She was just as scared as he was.

"Please don't cry." He said plainly, sucking in a deep breath. Her chest started shaking and he couldn't tell if she was sobbing or laughing. He hoped she was doing the latter. She wasn't.

"I'm not." She didn't even know why she felt the need to lie so bluntly and unbelievably. He was right there. He could feel her tears falling onto his hair. "I love you. So much. So, so much." She said suddenly, cradling the back of his head with her palm as she rocked the both of them back and forth. There wasn't really much of a need for her to say it. She knew it. He knew it. She just wanted to hear herself saying it.

Saying it to him. Knowing that he was still there. Still alive. Safe for the time being.

"I'm so used to hiding. That's why I think I did it, you know." He said after he had been quiet for a long time. He sniffed his leaking nose away and pulled his head up to look at her face in the yellowed light of the hotel room. Her eyes were just as red as his were. Her hair was in a fiery chaos around her face. She had made an attempt at tying it up so it wouldn't get in the way but loose locks had fallen everywhere and she didn't want to bother herself with fixing them. "Because I guess I'm used to not wanting to give in when things get bad. Fighting it, even. Maybe you could call it that. I don't know." Now he was suddenly embarrassed.

He could feel her heart slow down. Probably out of shock. A little bit of numbness too.

"But that's not...it's not...important. It doesn't matter. I shouldn't have even said anything. It was dumb. I'm sorry." He rattled off quickly, shaking his head. He wrapped his huge hand around hers and fit his face back into the crook of her neck.

"No, don't say that." Her voice cracked as she tightened her grip around his fingers. _I could have lost you tonight. It would have been my fault for leaving the room after you kept telling me you wanted me to stay. _If his first instinct hadn't been to hide then it would have been to kill himself. She didn't want to be thankful for that but somehow she was. _  
_

She held his face tighter into her neck and she inhaled sharply as she tried to stop from crying again but it was no use. He could hear small sobs escaping from her throat and he didn't know how to help her. "Carmen, don't—"

"Shut up and let me cry." She mumbled, making him clamp his lips together. "I love you." She said to him for the second time that night.

And he finally smiled.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Psychotic Girl" by the Black Keys. _

**Yeah, it's been probably like twelve years since I've updated and I really am sorry about that, guys. I've just had so much work to do and I've had terrible writer's block. I really gotta stop promising you guys quick updates because I just don't think that can happen unless my workload gets chopped in half haha. **

**Anyways, on a more positive note: the first scene in this chapter is a backstory/meta/flashback-type sequence that I've seen in my head for a long time so I'm finally happy that I got to write it out for you guys. Next chapter should be wrapping up "Motel California" and I have to decide whether or not I'm gonna fit in a couple supplementary chapters during "Currents". Maybe some McLahey Family stuff, ya know? ALSO: I got a review asking me what I was going to do with the Allisaac and I'm not going to put that ship in the fic because I feel like it's counter-intuitive with all the development I've done with relationships thus far. **


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